OK, everyone, so welcome once again and always nice to start
off with the homeless to the triple gem and the meta suit.
I kind of put in the right mood, especially if you understand
what it it means. So it's nice to have the English
translation there on the screen, which is which is great.
So now time for a Dumber talk. I'm going to talk today about
how to distinguish real from fake, Dumber.
And this was a topic that was given to me actually quite a
while ago when I was in the United States that talked about
this. And I thought it would be a
suitable topic tonight because this is always very
controversial. Who teaches the real Dhamma?
Who does not? How do we know if someone is
teaching the real deal? Or maybe it's a bit dodgy?
Sometimes it can be very difficult to distinguish.
Some people are very charismatic, some people are
very convincing. It may seem like they are
teaching the right thing. I've just been teaching a nine
or eight day retreat or whatever it was.
What did I say? Did I say things that were kind
of the real deal or was it a bit dodgy or was it kind of, you
know what, what was the standard of the content of my talk?
So today I'm going to justify why everything I said was
exactly correct then. So this is the way it usually
goes, right? And this is surprisingly
important in Buddhism, this idea of actually knowing whether
things are real dumb or not, whether they are compatible with
the teachings of the Buddha or whether they actually turn out
to be a bit kind of on the on the edge of what is acceptable.
And the kind of my favorite kind of point to show how dangerous
it can be. This was from a conference, a
Buddhist conference that we had in Perth, I think 2016 or
something like that. And at this conference, one
speaker, yeah, after the other. And they came from various walks
of life and their various parts of society in Australia, also
from overseas. And almost everyone, they had a
quote from the Buddha, right? So there was like a quote,
quotation marks, and then it said the Buddha underneath,
right? And I kind of watched these
quotes as they came up one after the other.
Now I happened to be the last person on the speakers list of
that conference. And so when I kind of got got up
on the stage, the very first thing I said, I said I've been
following these so-called Buddha quotes throughout this
conference and not a single one of them, because I know my
suitors fairly well, not a single one of them is actually a
quote from the Buddha. And so and that was kind of very
interesting. Yeah.
And I realised at that point how careful you have to be to
actually, you know, whether something really is from the
Buddha or not. Now, sometimes it may not matter
because sometimes it may just be an alternative way of looking at
the world. It may be more modern kind of
outlook or whatever. Yeah, it may not matter, but
sometimes it may matter. Sometimes these so-called Buddha
quotes may actually be misleading.
Then we kind of lead us in the wrong direction and they may be
really, really problematic. Yeah.
And after this conference, I discovered that there is a
Buddhist website that you may have heard about called Fake
Buddha Quotes. Yeah.
And this is like this investigate investigative
journalist. It's not a journalist, it's a
investigate investigative Buddhist monk.
And he kind of takes on people writing into him saying, well,
this I've, you know, found this on the Internet.
It's supposed to be from the Buddha.
Is it really from the Buddha? And then he investigates whether
it is or not. And he has this long list of
fake Buddha quotes. And then he has some real Buddha
quotes as well, right. Not every so-called Buddha quote
is fake, but many 90% or something are.
It's kind of quite a bit disturbing sometimes.
So during this talk today, I'm going to put you to the test.
Are you ready for that? I've got some of these quotes.
Some of them are going to be fake.
Some of them are going to be real.
Yeah. I'm going to see how sharp you
are in the knowledge of the Buddhist teachings.
And it's just a little bit of fun.
If you don't want to take part, that's fine.
We'll see what see what happens, but before I go and test you and
kind of give you ABC or FMC and see what happens, what kind of
grade you end up with in this thing here, before I put you to
the test, I'm going to give you some guidelines here, how to
know whether something is a real quote from the Buddha or not.
And then we put you to the test. And then we will, after the
test, we will then talk a bit more about what are real, what
is real Buddhism and what is not.
Now, 1 of some of the things about the Buddhist teachings.
And one of the things that is a very obvious giveaway if
something is fake is that if it sounds too modern, yeah, it
sounds like it has been invented in California in 2015 or
whatever, right. And that is always kind of a
giveaway. One of the beautiful things
about the Buddhist teachings is that they are so perennial.
Perennial means that they are always valid.
They don't have a use by day. They don't belong to one
particular society or one particular period of history
here. They're always valid.
They're applicable to all people.
At all times, and this is what is so beautiful about these
teachings. Because what that means is that
as Buddhism spreads out into the world, as it comes to Australia,
yeah, too far, far away on the kind of the southern hemisphere,
it is still valid, it is still applicable, it is still useful
to us. And this is one of the things
that make you special. If Buddhism is too modern, if it
fits kind of with our modern views and our modern ideas of
psychology and modern ideas of philosophy, our modern cultural
references, what whatever, there's something limited about
it. It is no longer applicable in
the broadest possible sense. And that to me is problematic.
Because these teachings should be about the deeper
psychological reality of human beings.
And these are universal characteristics, regardless of
culture, regardless of history, regardless of all of these
things that seem to divide us on the surface, it's actually
wonderful that we are far less. When you look into the human
heart and the human mind, we are far more unified that sometimes
the world will have it. And this is a great way of
actually creating a bit of sense of unity in the world.
But the one of the things that always impressed me with the
Buddha and Buddhism is precisely this idea that we're dealing
with a religion or a teaching that is universal there, that is
perennial there. Yeah.
And that is very, very different from almost all other religions
in the world. Almost all other philosophies in
the world, the vast majority of religions and philosophy, they
arose in a particular historical context and they belong to a
particular tribe, right. It was our God.
Our God is very parochial. It's very kind of small minded.
It belongs to our society. Yeah.
This is our God who protects us. The neighboring tribe, they have
their God. And we just as we fight each
other among the humans, the gods up there fight each other.
Yeah. So whoever is kind of the
strongest God up in the heavenly realm there.
And so there is this sense that religion very often is about our
personal relationship with our God, and it's small and it's
kind of narrow in content. But in Buddhism we move to a
very different kind of view of the world.
And this is what makes Buddhism so powerful, one of many, many
things that makes Buddhism almost unique in the world.
It is universal. It is not narrowed down to 1
particular tribe, but one particular people.
It is not about the Indians in ancient India 2 1/2 thousand
years ago. It is about them too, but not
just about them. It is not about their
relationship to the Buddha. And when you start to read the
suit, as you start to look at how the Buddha expressed his
Dhamma, he actually says this in the suitors.
Yeah. One of the things that we have
at the very beginning of Buddhism, we have the idea of
the Dhamma Chakka pavatana. Yeah, that's the first suit of
the Buddha and Dhamma. Chakka pavatana means the
setting in motion of the wheel of the Dhamma, the wheel of the
teaching here. And this idea of setting
something in motion, the wheel of the Dhamma, means that this
is something that will kind of keep on going in the world.
Yeah, you're setting, you're starting something, something
that is so compelling and so powerful now that once it gets
going in the world, it kind of carries on from one generation
to the next, from 1 century to the next, from one culture to
the next, from one nationality to the next.
And it doesn't stop because of force.
And the power of that Dhamma is so great that when people hear
it, they say, yeah, well, this is it, just like we do here,
right? Wow, this is the Dhamma.
OK, let's pass it on to the next generation.
Let's practice these teachings. Let's realize their content in
our own experience. And then as you do that, you
pass it down the line. And this is what the Buddha knew
when he started teaching people around him in that society.
He knew that he was setting in motion the wheel of the Dhamma.
He says that in the suitors. And because he knew that, he
knew that he would have to phrase the Dhamma in a way that
is not peculiar to the Indian context, peculiar to that
historical context, but in a universal way, so people even
today can understand these teachings.
So he specifically phrased his Dhamma in this universal way so
that anyone in the world can relate to these things.
And This is why when you open the suitors in the present day,
it doesn't feel all that alien. It doesn't really feel.
Sometimes it can feel like that if you look at the kind of
narrative content. But if you focus on the
teachings of the Buddha, they are not very tied to a
particular place or historical context.
The Buddha knew what he was doing.
He started something that would carry on into the future.
And so he phrased this teaching in universal terms.
So if you, and actually there's something very powerful about
that, I'd like to make this point when I teach retreats, for
example, there's something extraordinarily powerful about
that because sometimes we think that these teachings, they were
given to the people around the Buddha, they were his real
disciples. They were the ones who took the
Buddha as their teacher. But if the Buddha phrases this
in a way to make it valid for future generations because he
wanted us to understand also in the present day, it means that
the Buddha did not just teach those people, but he's also our
teachers teacher because he had us in mind in a very literal
sense. Yeah, He knew about people in
the future. And so actually the Buddha is
your teacher in a very real way, especially when you go back to
the suitors, you open those suitors and you feel like you're
connecting with the Buddha through those teachings.
He is your teacher. And what that means if we start
to read these suitors, these ceilings by the Buddha, they
come alive in a way that otherwise they would not.
It's like if this is my teacher and he is now teaching me, it's
like you start to get goosebumps, right?
This is the greatest spiritual master in human history.
That's a bit of Buddhist propaganda for you, but it's
true, right? It's true as far as I'm
concerned, it's true. And so here he is talking to you
directly because he knew that it will be people in the future
listening to these teachings. And you start reading the
suitors in a new way here, because you don't no longer read
them as something alien or foreign belonging to somewhere
else. No, these things belong to you.
You are a direct disciple of the Buddha through these suitors.
And then you read them more carefully here.
You read them looking for the content in an entirely new way.
You ask yourself, well, what does this actually mean, right?
You investigate these things in deeper way.
You carry them away with you. After you have heard these
teachings, you look at them more carefully.
You start to try to figure out what is actually going on here,
and then they come alive in your own life.
Then you start to apply them and use them in your own existence,
and then they start to bear real fruits, which leads to more
interest in those teachings going.
Back to the suit as again and gradually building up this
powerful force in your life that propels you forward in which
direction? Towards happiness and towards
the reduction in suffering. And what a wonderful thing that
is. And so.
The idea here, yeah, is to kind of understand that these
teachings are perennial in this way.
And so when you see a so-called Buddha quote that kind of quotes
too much from whatever modern psychology where it sounds too
good to be true, then probably it is too good to be true.
This does not mean that the language can be modern.
That language can sometimes be modern because sometimes a
translator prefers to use kind of modern jargon or modern
words. Yeah.
And that is fine there, but it is the ideas, the cultural
references, the historical layers or whatever.
This is what has to be perennial there.
And when you see it perennial in this way, you know you're likely
to be on the right track. Quite likely.
These are real Buddhist teachings.
So this is the first one, right? How to recognise real Buddhist
teachings. The second thing here, and this
is that these teachings are usually not personal.
Yeah, they're not kind of about individual people or groups of
people or nationalities or anything like that.
They're not given to individuals as such, but they are give that
impersonal and again universal in.
Character. And sometimes we seem to think
that the Buddha was a master in tailoring his teachings to
individuals. Yeah, the idea of skilful means.
And he would look at you and he would read your mind.
Would you like to have your mind read?
That's kind of. Scary, isn't it?
Sometimes we think it's actually not scary at all, because Buddha
knows all minds and your mind is just like all other minds.
Yeah. And that's that.
You don't have to be worried at all.
And if you think about killing someone, he's used to people
thinking about killing people. So you're, you're all right,
even if you have a really kind of brutal ideas in your mind.
But so we have this idea that the Buddha cannot give very
specific teachings to individuals.
And sometimes it does. Sometimes people come to the
Buddha and they ask, please, Venerable Sir, please give me a
teaching for me so I can kind of go off into the forest and
meditate. And the Buddha will then give
teachings to that person. But when you look at the
teachings that he gives, there are just extracts from the
Dhamma in general, right? They're not specifically,
they're not kind of unique teachings for that person.
He just takes a particular part of the Dhamma and then applies
that. And the reason for that is
because we are all the same. Yeah, we have all the same kind
of definements. We have all the same kind of
problems. We have the same kind of mental
faculties and mental abilities and things that we need to
develop and things that we need to avoid.
We are pretty boring banished, you know.
The world is far less exciting than you think it is.
You travel to far away countries around the world.
Wherever you go in the world, people are essentially the same.
On the surface, you know, OK, you get this kind of food, that
kind of food. And, you know, you get kind of
these kind of monuments, that kind of monuments, but actually
look a little bit below the surface, and you realise people
are essentially the same. This is why it is possible for
the Buddha to use his teachings. Yeah, same teachings again and
again. They're not really personalized.
They're always universal and impersonal in nature.
And this is the other thing when something sounds too
personalized. This is valid for modern
Australian culture, right? OK, wait a minute, This is too
personal for this culture or this is valid in Japan or valid
in the United States or whatever.
OK, this probably is a bit dodgy.
It's too localized it. Lacks that sense of being
universal, again applying to all the humanity across the border.
So this is another kind of important point about the
Dhamma. The Third Point about the
Dhamma, which I like to bring out, is that the Dhamma is often
very simple and very straight to the point.
It is not very fancy. The Buddha's point is to deliver
a message, a message about happiness, a message about
overcoming suffering, a message about joy and peace and all of
these wonderful things in life. That is the Buddha's message.
And to be able to deliver that message successfully here, he
has to be clear, he has to kind of give the message without too
much embellishment, too much Floridaness and all of these
kind of things. So he kind of, and this is what
you find in the suit as a generally speaking, the word of
the Buddha is very simple, very straight to the point, not very
hard to understand. And sometimes people think, oh,
the suitor's too difficult to read.
I'd rather read some kind of modern teachers or whatever.
But actually the word of the Buddha is far more down to earth
than many, many modern teachers, much easier to understand.
The modern teacher may be very beautiful in the way they are
phrased and kind of using interesting words and all this
kind of thing. But the word of the Buddha is
far more precise, far more easy to understand.
When you put it all together and you kind of look at it with
care, care, then it actually is, to my mind, far more easy and
simple and straight to the point than almost any other teaching
here. And this is also one of the
things that distinguishes the early Buddhist suit as coming
from the Buddha. Too much of later Buddhist
literature, Later Buddhist literature is often very fancy.
It is often very Florida. It often has all kind of beings.
It has like 10 pages of just kind of miracles and all these
kind of things. Starting off, it kind of
embellishes the myth of the Buddha, makes the Buddha into
some kind of superhuman being, which actually to me detracts
from the teachings because it makes the Buddha more distant
from us. It no longer relates to us in
exactly the same way here, but the early suitors are very
ordinary here. The Buddha comes across as
pretty much an ordinary human being, especially before his
awakening here. The Buddha had defilements, the
Buddha had wrong views. The Buddha was attaching to
things in the world. He basically had the same kind
of problems that we had. And because he had the same
problems that we have in the present day, it means that he
was looking for solutions in the same place we should look for
solutions. And that is why his teachings
are so interesting to us, precisely because he's a human
being looking at the same problems, trying to find the
same kind of solutions. So this is one way in which the
suitors are really down to earth.
The Buddha is a human being just like us.
OK, once he became the Buddha, you can argue if you wish, that
he wasn't human in the ordinary sense anymore.
But prior to becoming the Buddha, he certainly was human,
very, very similar to what we are in the present day and
anytime throughout history. And that is very, very, to me,
very important. And again, it is one of those
things that make the Buddhist teachings pretty much unique in
human history. Most religions in the world,
they have some kind of supernatural or something really
mystical and marvellous and strange.
Buddhism again. We are down to earth.
But it's not just the fact that the Buddha was human, but it's
also the nature of his teachings as well.
They're also very down to earth, Right.
When we talk about Buddhist meditation, I'm almost eating
the microphone. Be careful about that.
It's not good for my digestion. So one of the things about
Buddhism. Yeah.
Like, for example, the meditation that is most common
in the Buddhism is mindfulness of breathing.
Yeah, yeah. Following your breath.
The breath is one of those most natural things in the universe.
There's nothing fancy about it. There's no kind of massive
imaginations and kind of imagining this or imagining
that. It's kind of down to some very
basic realities of life. The death.
The breath is kind of grounding. It doesn't take you off and kind
of make potentially makes you go crazy because you're looking at
all of these kind of, you know, weird things in the world.
It comes down to something very ordinary and simple that is all
the way is available to us. And this, again, is kind of one
of the beauties of the Buddhist teachings.
And the Buddha says himself that this is the this is the
meditation I use before my awakening.
This led to my awakening. He specifically says this is the
mindfulness of breathing. Yeah.
So the Buddhist teachings are really simple.
Yeah. And then what are the things
that lead to that mindfulness of breathing?
Well, it's morality, morality in the broader sense of kindness.
So kindness is the foundation for the Buddhist path.
So you can argue that Buddhism is about two things, kindness
and mindfulness of breathing here, and that is really all
there's to it. Isn't that wonderful there?
So simple. You don't have to worry about
dependent origination. Yeah.
You don't have to worry about all of these complex things.
What is the meaning of nama rupa, or name and form?
What exactly does that refer to? And of course, you can mess up
your mind big time if you do that.
I ended up the retreat that we had by talking about a
consciousness and name and form and how they relate to each
other. And I was a bit concerned.
I bamboozled everyone, including myself, by ending by ending up
the retreat in such a kind of complicated ideas.
But actually, if you're interested in those things,
great. And they can be good fun and
they can lead to greater appreciation of the Buddhist
teachings and they can lead to a sense of confidence that these
teachings really work, that they have the kind of holistic view
of the world. That kind of everything really
comes together in a nice way, but it's not really required.
And for those of you who already have enough faith and confidence
and all you want to do is to live the.
Path, Yeah, kindness and mindfulness of breathing is
really all you need. A bit of right view is also
helpful. I should add that of course, but
you have the right view already, right?
That's why you are here. So you cannot get that right
view sorted out. So that is the beauty of the
Buddhist eating. Simple, straight to the point,
nothing fancy here. You can actually forget about
all of those fancy things. We don't need to be very
philosophical anything like that.
Have a good heart. And if you consistently have a
good heart, your meditation is going to be very.
Powerful as a consequence. So that is the the third thing
about the the Buddhist and the fourth thing that I would just
emphasise today, and that is that the Dhamma is not worldly
in nature. Here, The Dhamma is spiritual in
nature here, and this is maybe the most important of all of
these points that we're talking about today here.
When you read the suitors, they're always pointing you in
One Direction only, towards the spiritual path, towards the joys
and happiness that are outside of our ordinary worldly
existence. And sometimes you read so-called
Buddha quotes and you think this is just too worldly.
Yeah. How to have a good family?
I mean it's important to have a good family relationships, but
that is not usually what the Buddha focus is on how to enjoy
your life to the maximum, right? Sometimes you think these quotes
or how this is how you enjoy your life to the maximum.
True if it is the spiritual life, but not true if it refers
to worldly life. So the Buddha's teaching always
have this kind of slightly otherworldliness about it, the
idea of going beyond our ordinary life, because our
ordinary life, we know it already, it is fraught with
problems, fraught with all kind of things.
And the reason why we come to the Buddhist city is to elevate
us a little bit out of that ordinary existence.
That is the whole point. So Buddhism should have a
slightly otherworldly and spiritual feeling.
Yeah, that is what we should expect.
And if some things are too ordinary, OK, maybe be a little
bit sceptical about it. So now I have given you some
criteria by. Which to judge whether we have
real Buddhism or not. So now I'm going to put you to
the test. So Are you ready for that?
This is a bit of fun and games, right?
We don't want to. I, I like a little bit of
innovation in my done my talks. Not too much innovation.
It has to be kind of aligned with the suitors, but a little
bit of innovation. I wonder what the Buddha would
have said with this. Maybe he would have told me off
and said get, you know, don't do that.
Anyway, so this is so let's see what you what you think about
this. So these are some of the things
that I picked out of this fake Buddha quotes.
You can't see. Sorry, I apologise, I'm being
very naughty. OK, so this is this is one of
these quotes, right? And it all of this, remember all
of these quotes, they have had the Buddha, Yeah, underneath it,
pretending to be the Buddha, Buddha quoter.
And so this is the first one. This is very obvious.
But anyway, I'll just start off in a kind way towards you.
So have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike.
Each has their own suffering. Some suffer too much, others too
little. So who thinks that is a fake
Buddha quote? Yeah.
You're very wise. That's excellent.
Well done. No one has ever heard of anyone
who suffers too little, right? That's just completely UN
Buddhist. And this doesn't work.
Yeah. OK.
Another one. As you walk and eat and travel,
be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of
your life. Fake.
OK Again. Yeah.
You are excellent. So this is what I think so.
Yeah. You know intuitively what is
Buddhism, right? You have this feeling you can't
kind of tell straight away. Here.
All things are perfect exactly as they are fake.
Certainly the Buddha never says that, right?
This is kind of a modern, maybe that's kind of some kind of New
Age teaching, but not certainly not Buddhism.
Yeah, the Buddha talks about dukkha.
That's the kind of is famous for that.
And sometimes we need to remind people there is sukkah as well
in life, unless we kind of get labeled as pessimistic
Buddhists. OK, next one, a sweet friendship
refreshes the soul. Fake.
Pretty, pretty obvious, right?
It's kind of a giveaway. The word soul is kind of.
Yeah, that's kind of OK. All descriptions of reality are
temporary hypothesis. Fake.
Yeah, it's fake. Yeah, because of course the
Buddha has ideas about reality, right?
There are certain things that are true.
The Buddha talks about yatta Buddha and anadasana, seeing
things accordance to reality. There are certain things that
are real. Yes, there are things that are
temporary, but there also are things that are real ways of
looking at the world. OK, next one.
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who said it, no
matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reasons
and your own common sense. Fake.
Yes, fake. Another fake one, but this one
is getting closer right now we are getting closer to what the
Kalama Sutra, the idea that you, you shouldn't kind of just
believe things in the world, but it does not mean that you should
never believe anything. This is also kind of wrong.
Once you have a degree of confidence in the Buddhist
teachings, once you have listened to what he has to say,
you. Build up a degree of confidence
and faith, and then you start to have faith in the Buddha.
So if you are a Buddhist, it is reasonable to have a degree of
confidence in things like rebirth.
Why? Because the Buddha said it.
People think that having faith in what the Buddha said 2 1/2
thousand years ago is kind of crazy about rebirth.
But remember, the Buddha is a teacher like any other teacher
in the world, except that he's far more powerful, wise, all of
these kind of things. And when you go to school, do
you believe what the teacher says?
Generally, yes. Right.
So if you believe, an ordinary school teacher should definitely
believe the Buddha, Right. So if the Buddha says there is
rebirth. Yeah.
OK, I'll, I'll at least I'll consider that very carefully
before I reject it. The other thing which is a
giveaway here is that believe nothing no matter where you read
it. Well, there was no much reading
at the time of the Buddha. That's another kind of giveaway
here. If if no matter where you saw it
on TV, that would have been another giveaway here.
OK, so chaos is inherent in all compounded things.
Strive on with diligence. Fake you say?
Fake. Yes.
OK, One fake there, another fake over here and more fakes.
A few more fake. OK, Wow, you are so wise.
So this is again getting close to what the board I was talking
about, right? It's if you don't get it right,
I will forgive you because this is not so obvious, but the
Buddha doesn't say chaos is inherent in all compounded
things. What the Buddha says is that all
compounded things are subject to vanishing or subject to
impermanence. That is what he says.
The world is not really chaotic. The world exists.
According to certain laws, one of the laws is the law of
dependent origination, right? So there is a lawfulness in the
world. It is impermanent, true, but
there's a lawfulness to these things.
So there's a slightly problematic this one here
because if it is complete chaos, how can we even practice a path?
Yeah, there must be a structure in the world for the path to be
possible. OK, so now getting ready for
this one, set your heart on doing good.
Do it over and over again and you will be filled with joy.
Wow, this is this is amazing. You are.
This is kind of really that that actually this is pretty much a
true Buddha code, right? Yeah.
So that's really, that's wonderful.
This is, I think taken from the Damapada, I believe.
And it is a little bit of a modern kind of translation.
So maybe you haven't heard it exactly translated like that.
But essentially this is exactly from the suitors and it's a
beautiful code, right? Actually was so happy when I saw
that I thought, wow, I got to bring that one out.
Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again and
you will be filled with joy here.
This is kind of the idea of kindness, right?
Always be kind, always take every opportunity here.
Every word that comes out of your your mouth should be kind,
caring, compassionate, gentle, truthful, meaningful.
Bringing harmony in the world? Yeah, anyway.
Last one for today. Nothing can harm you as much as
your own thoughts unguarded. All right, You are very well
educated bunch. Congratulations.
So you've got everything right, every single one.
And what that shows you is that it is not that difficult to have
an idea Yeah. So when you see Buddha quotes in
the world, when you see. Kind of when you go to this kind
of conferences, I'm not sure if I would recommend this
conference, but if you ever go to this conferences and you see
Buddha quote the Buddha, be skeptical.
Trust your own judgement. Yeah, don't go with the crowd
because the crowd will say yay Buddha quote wonderful.
Don't be be the educated Buddhist that you.
Are and follow your own judgement because you have an
idea of what is going on there. And it was very interesting when
I was in the US recently, I was in California as well in Silicon
Valley, which was kind of cool. I've never really been much to
the US before, so it was kind of nice.
And it turns out Americans are much like people everywhere
else, which is kind of nice when you read the news, they get all
these distorted feelings about other countries.
But when you go to places, you get the feeling for the people,
and usually people are people. And that's kind of nice to see,
especially if you're a Buddhist monkey.
People always treat you with a lot of kindness.
And that's kind of one of the great benefits of being a
monastic, by the way, here. So when I was there, I went to
this Buddhist centre, 1 of the kind of larger Buddhist centres
in Silicon Valley in a place called Redwood City.
And, and it was kind of a large room downstairs where they gave
Dumber talks. And then there were some offices
upstairs and upstairs. That was where they kind of the
head of this group was based. His name is Guild Frondsdaler
and he has done some translations of the Dumber
paradigm, all of these kind of things.
And he also has a Norwegian background.
Yeah, so I kind of, OK. So we kind of got on really
well. We spoke Norwegian with each
other, although his Norwegian was a bit dodgy, I have to say,
living abroad for too long. And he had this poster on the
wall, right? And they had a picture of the
Buddha and it had this quote and it had the Buddha underneath.
It was a, you know, it was supposed to be a Buddha quote,
right? And and the quote was pretty
sure I never said that. And I thought, wow, this is a
such a good one. This is the best one, right?
It is not taken from the suitors, but if there's going to
be a fake Buddha quote, that's the best fake Buddha quote I've
seen. This is.
Really, really good one. So anyway, so you get an idea,
yeah, of what actually are fake Buddha quotes in this world and
what are not. I want to go a little bit
further here. I want to talk a little bit
about, first of all, about where we find the real teachings of
the Buddha. Yeah, this is actually very
simple and something I talked about many times before, but I
want to kind of reiterate it briefly because it's a very
important point because very often we are presented with
teachings and they are said to be suitors.
Yeah, the word of the Buddha. And it's not just people who are
born in the West who are confused about this.
People who are born in traditional Buddhist countries
are also confused about this. I have traditional Buddhist
countries, but this is in the suitors.
I said, no, it's not in the suitors.
I know the suitors. Really.
Well, this is from the commentary, this is from the
giant Agatel, this is from the stories of the Buddha's
lifetime. It is not from the suitors.
The suitors are the things we call the word of the Buddha.
Yeah, what the Buddha spoke and that which is not the suitors
are later developments that have been added later on, like
commentaries and stories and all of these kind of things.
So to be able to find out what the suitors are, it is good to.
Start with some of those things, yeah, that are from the most
kind of early layers of discourses, and see, well, how
does the Buddha himself recommend that we should
distinguish the real from the false?
And one of the things that the Buddha says, it says that, well,
the thing that you should take as you're teaching after I pass
away is the Dumber and Vinaya that I have proclaimed to you.
Yeah. And So what he is saying, and
this is a very important point right there, when we decide what
is real Buddhism, it is the word of the Buddha that is primary.
All other things in Buddhism are secondary here.
It doesn't mean we should reject all other things, but it means
that the word of the Buddha is where we should kind of find the
final answer to what is real Buddhism.
And this is important because too often I hear or it doesn't
matter where it comes from as long as it is true or whatever.
But how on earth do you know if it is true if you have no idea
where it comes from? A large part of what is called
later Buddhism was handed down by anonymous people.
Yeah, people, we don't know who they are.
They wrote this kind of thing, and sometimes they seem really
fancy and really amazing or whatever.
But there are anonymous. Can we trust anonymous authors
to present us with a real dumb? And the answer is we just don't
know. We have no idea.
Maybe it is good, maybe it is bad.
Sometimes it's very difficult to distinguish the real teachings
from the dodgy teachings, and sometimes it is therefore better
to leave it to one side. Yeah.
And in the Theravada tradition, it is obvious that a lot of
things we have in the Theravada tradition are are later than not
the word of the Buddha like the. Abidama it is.
It doesn't mean that all the abidama is wrong, but it means
we don't really know who authored the abidama.
We don't know why it was authored.
We don't know whether it, you know, it has any adds anything
to our understanding. And I would say it detracts from
our understanding. Why?
Because it is too philosophical. It is too much about building up
kind of systems and building up things that are really not all
that relevant to our practice. And so I say it can be detract
from understanding of the Dumber.
The Jhataka tales is another one.
The Jhataka tales are often very charming stories, but very often
they are not Buddhist at all. Sometimes the Jhataka are anti
Buddhist. Yeah, they have morals in there.
They have ideas and they actually go against morality and
kindness. Yeah, I'd like the Buddha to be
kind of giving away his children and wife.
What is that about giving away your children and wife?
Is that kind of the right thing to do?
Of course not. And yet sometimes we celebrate
these things as if they are great acts of renunciation when
really they are inappropriate to do and so.
Sometimes we need, again, it's actually very useful to remember
this distinction where we find the real Buddhist teachings to
go back to those, take those as the gold standard, and then we
have something that we actually can rely on and everything else
can then be understood in light of that gold standard.
We have something safe, we have a safe harbour, if you like,
where we can fight, where we can judge whether something is real
teaching or not. In that same place where the
Buddha says you should follow the Dhamma in Vindhya that I
have laid down, he also says in that suta, and this by the way,
is the Mahapar Nibhana Suta, the 16th Suta of the Long Discourse
of the Buddha, the Diga Nikaya, and it is where the Buddha.
In his last journey and he lays down the things that he wants
the Sangha and the Buddhist community to remember after his
passing away. Here and there.
He also says that after my passing away you should take
refuge in the Dhamma that I have taught.
What is that? It is the 37 bodipakia dhamas.
These are the 37 aids to awakening.
Here and this is like a summary of all the various teachings
that he has given her. If you look at those 37 aids to
awakening, what you find in there, the majority of those
teachings are about mental cultivation.
The last three factors. Of the noble and full path.
Right action, not action, right effort, right meditation, right
mindfulness and right stillness. Right samadhi at the very end,
so. That is another very good
pointer to what is real Buddhism.
If it is about mental cultivation, and cultivation
here means developing good qualities, abandoning bad ones,
that's really what it comes back to.
If it is about that, it is likely to be very closely
related to early teachings, to what the Buddha taught.
And that gives us a very nice guidance right there about what
real Buddhism is about. Yeah, real Buddhism, and this is
something you see actually in many, many places in the Zutas,
Real Buddhism are those teachings that lead you, when
you practice them, to better personal qualities and a
reduction in bad personal qualities.
So any teachings that lead you in that direction build up the
good things and lead to a decline in the bad things within
you. Those are likely, possibly not
always, but possibly one way of judging whether something is an
authentic Buddhist teaching or not, that is kind of a broad
overview. So come back to those early suit
as a Buddhism. So what is it that the Buddha
taught if the Buddha says my teachings are primary because
this is the gold standard for everything else?
How do we know what the Buddha taught?
And fortunately, we have very good reasons to think that we
know pretty much exactly what the Buddha taught.
And this can be done through historical studies of the
Surtas. Through inquiry into what?
Unifies the Dhamma in certain ways.
And what unifies the Dhamma, The early Buddhism is that there are
certain ideas that are propounded or explained there.
There's a certain kind of language that is used.
The Pali language changes over time.
The Pali language of the suit, as is one kind of Pali.
Later Pali is slightly different.
The grammar is a certain way. The the kind of the feeling of
the language. Yeah, is has a certain feel to
it. And that changes over time.
For example, if you read English language and you compare modern
English to the language of Shakespeare, very different kind
of language. Yeah.
But even the language of Dickens, which is only about 150
years ago, is actually quite different from modern English.
You feel that you're entering a different period and it's like,
of course, all languages are the same.
It's exactly the same thing with parley.
You can feel that you're entering different eras of the
use of the parley language. All you have to do is to read
parley. So you have to trust me, right?
So do you trust me? So I so, but these are things
that can be figured out. That's the point.
They can be investigated, they can be understood, and it's
possible to point out what are the early Dhamma and what is the
latter, what is the real teaching of the Buddha?
And of course you all know probably what it comes down to.
It comes down to the four main nikayas of Buddhists, the long
discourse, the middle discourse, the connected discourse and the
numerical discourse, the Tiga Nikai, Majumalika, Sanguta
Nikaya and Anguttara Nikaya. Those are really the main
things. You can add a bit from that,
subtract a bit from that. That gives you a very kind of
good starting point for deciding what real Buddhism is.
You can add the Damapada to that because Damapada is such a
beautiful collection. So to get a bit of inspiration,
we can add a bit of monastic rules to that, the Patimoca
rules amongst these kind of things.
But you have a good starting point right there.
So that is a good starting point.
So, but there is even deeper way in which to understand the dumb.
I, I had to apologise for talking a bit fast today.
But I, I think what happens is that when I've been giving so
many teachings, after a while I, you get a bit tired.
And when I get tired, I speak fast.
That's kind of weird, isn't it? That's what happens to me.
I kind of lose my kind of cool or whatever.
But anyway, that's what what happens.
So the thing actually goes beyond this, and one way of
thinking about the Dhamma is that we can also think about the
Dhamma, not just in terms of collection of books, yeah, but
how to recognize the Dhamma again from the result that they
actually give in your practice. And sometimes the Buddha does
exactly this. He gives you teachings.
And he gave the teaching 1 to Mahapati Gautami, Yeah, the
Buddha's stepmother, who became one of the first Arahat
Bikanese, maybe the first one. And then also to Venable Uppali,
when Uppali was the Barber of the seconds.
And he went forth and he became the number one expert on the
Vinaya, the monastic discipline, the monastic regulations.
And so both of them, they went to the Buddha and they asked
him, how do we recognise the real Buddhist teachings?
And because I can't remember verbatim what those things are,
I have them on my laptop. So this is one of my few
attachments in my life, is my laptop, because my excuse is the
Dhamma is there. So I got to, got to have it with
me here. So this is the Buddha's advice
to Mahapajapati Gotome. Yeah.
And he says, go to me, you might know that certain things lead to
and then all these things they lead to.
And this is then the summary of his teachings.
They lead to dispassion, not to passion.
Yeah. So passion is this feeling of
desire really comes back to desire.
It leads to the coolness of the mind.
This passion is a cool mind. Desire is a hot mind.
Yeah. Desire is all of these
attachments and and involvement with the world.
This passion is like standing back being cool.
Observing what is going on there.
This is one of the ways in which you recognise the real dumba.
It leads to being unfettered, not fettered.
Fetter is a bind, Binding. It's like a rope.
It binds you to the world. And you can feel sometimes the
mind withdraws from the attachments of the world.
Yeah. You're no longer bound to things
in the world, bound to whatever it might be here.
But you feel that you are released.
The world no longer has a hold on you.
It's like whatever happens in the world, actually, you can be
cool about that. You don't have to be involved.
You don't have to suffer as a consequence of the changes in
the world, including changes in your family.
Yeah, one of the most difficult things in the world is to deal
with changes in the family when people get sick, when they die
and these kind of things. But if you are really
unfettered, you really untie it to the world.
You can deal with those things as well in a reasonable way.
This gives you an idea that Buddhism is quite profound,
withdrawing the attachments and the cravings.
In that world it leads to dispersal, not accumulation.
Not sure about dispersal. This is I shall not name the the
translator because. But dispersal means like giving
up right? Not opposite of accumulation.
This is another thing, you see that some people are great
accumulators in life, but people who are on the path in a very
deep way, they want to give things up because they realise
all of this accumulation actually just clutters the mind
and it clutters your life and it makes life more complicated.
So they tend to give things up. And This is why you see, like if
you have a really, really, some of these really good monastics,
they have nothing. Yeah, yeah, they have very, very
few things. They don't even have a laptop.
That to me is like a miracle, right?
How is that possible? But.
But I remember that someone like my very good friend Bantasujatu,
I remember many years ago, he was staying at Bodinana
Monastery here. And one day he was leaving
Bodinana Monastery here. And all he had this were all his
belongings. Yeah.
He had nothing else. A shoulder bag, That was it.
And he walked out of the monastery kind of into the
sunset or whatever it is that you walk off into her.
And that was really cool, right? I think he may have had a laptop
in that shoulder bag, but but at least it was only one shoulder
bag, right? And actually, it is very
inspiring when you see that because I get this feeling of
lightness, some actor being unburdened, not holding onto
things in the world, living in a very simple way.
And I, I must admit I don't live up fully to that standard.
I I have too many books in my queue.
I did bring some books, by the way.
I don't understand. No.
Yeah. You saw them there.
OK, good. That was my unburdening.
I passed them on to burden someone else instead.
No. But for the monastery, I think
it's good. The monastery, I can have a few
books. Yeah, That's.
That's all right. Yeah.
Thank you for agreeing. Yeah.
OK. The next one is.
Fewness of desires, not more desires, right?
You don't actually want very much in the world.
You kind of, you are. You live simply and you're happy
with that. Very related to that is the idea
of contentment not being discontent.
You have the idea that you have enough, you're satisfied with
the way things are and you work with that, and that is OK.
Remember that beautiful verse, Madame Apada where the Buddha
says contentment is the highest wealth?
Because if you don't need anything more, that means that
you are wealthy enough. But if you have really, really
wealthy but you need more, well, you're not wealthy enough.
So that that reason contentment is the highest wealth.
It's a beautiful little saying right there, straight from the
Damapada. Damapada is a very inspiring
little book. Yeah.
It leads to seclusion, not to crowding or not to socialising.
Yeah, yeah. The Dumber, if you live it in
the right way, it leads to wanting to be by yourself,
wanting to enjoy your own company here, wanting to be
peaceful by yourself. It is another indication that
you're dealing with a real Dumber.
Dumber where there's too much grounding, too much going on,
too much socializing is OK in the beginning here, but it's not
where the Dumber leads to down the track.
Yeah, it leads to being unburdensome, not being
burdensome. Yeah, it is.
I think Subaru Baro is burden in partly.
Subaru means easy, an easy burden on the world.
You don't demand very much of the people around you.
Yeah, if you are a monastic, you don't really look for much from
the in terms of support. And I have to admit.
That the lay people are amazing. I'm always asked is anything you
need? And 9090% of the time, at least,
I have to say, well, thank you very much, but actually, can I
give you something instead? Because I have too many things
usually because people are so beautiful, they always give you
things. It's one of those most wonderful
thing about being a Buddhist monk is that people's kindness
really comes out. Yeah.
When you're a Buddhist monk. Yeah.
They always want to support you, to do things for you.
And that is so wonderful. And all kinds of people, yeah,
people are not even Buddhist, are kind to you when you're a
Buddhist monk. Yeah.
Happened to me many times. And it's a wonderful thing.
But it's also very wonderful as a monk to be able to say, I
really appreciate your kindness, thanks, but no thanks.
So never feel upset if a monk or a nun doesn't, doesn't accept
your generosity or because all it means is that actually I'm
already content. I have enough.
And sometimes instead rejoice when they say that actually I
don't need anything else because it's a sign of contentment, a
sign of being unburdensome. And that is also often very
beautiful here. And sometimes as a monastic,
you, you receive things, you you'd accept it just to pass it
on to another monastic, right? That's also kind of nice thing
to do. And so this is kind of how you
unburdensome. It's one of these beautiful
qualities. So this is what the Buddha said
to Mahapajapati. And you can see these are all
very spiritual values, right? And then he says you should
definitely bear in mind that these things are the teaching,
these things are the training, these things are the teachers
instruction that gives you a beautiful.
Idea. So in other words, it's not
necessarily always about suitors.
You don't have to actually teach from the suitors necessarily to
be teaching, giving good teachings.
If you teach according to these ideas here, then you are on the
right track. And I want to finish off with
just a little bit about that. How should we teach in the
modern world? Should we always quote the
suitors? Is that necessary?
Can we sometimes talk about different things?
What should the relationship be between the suitors and how we
teach now? One of the things to remember,
one of the things that I always found interesting here, if you
look at some of the greatest Buddhist masters in the world,
especially in places like Thailand, I think about people
like Ajanshah. Yeah, OK, no, no picture of him
here. Ajam Shah, who was of course,
Ajam Brahms teacher, regarded by many as the greatest meditation
master in Thailand in the 20th century.
A very, very powerful person from what I never met him, but
from what people say and from, you know, the feeling you get
about him. And yet when you listen to the
teachings of someone like Ajam Shah, he.
Never really quotes from the suitors.
And the reason for that is very simple.
He didn't know any suitors. Yeah.
So it's kind of straightforward. So, but still his teachings were
considered very very powerful there and many people who
practised according to this teasing got very powerful
result. Ajam Brahm of course being one
of those people there. Ajam Brahm today is probably one
of the pre eminent meditators anywhere in the world.
He is also extraordinary. I've known Ajam Brahm for 30
years and I never seem to be amazed by Ajam Brahm.
And some of his qualities. Usually you start to get a bit
kind of you look down upon people after I've been with them
for so long. But you know, it's like
familiarity breeds contempt. You know the old saying.
But for me, over time, my respect for Jambram, it's always
growing. And this is kind of weird.
I think it's because I am getting wiser over time.
I'm not saying I'm very wise, but I used to be even more
unwise, believe it or not, than I am now.
So it's kind of that's the that's the issue here.
And so sometimes they teach things that don't refer to the
suit as at all, that can actually be very powerful if
that person understands what they are talking about, if that
person has been has been given good teaching from their
teachers. And of course, that is the
point. Point is that Ajan Shah, he had
good teachers himself like Ajan Man.
And so sometimes there is a lineage that does not really go
back to the suitors very much. Actually, Ajan Man, he did use
the suitors. And that is kind of what is
interesting here. Because as a man, because he
didn't really have any teachers very, very much in terms of the
forest tradition and these kind of things, he actually went to
the city and he asked. People in the city, well, what
are the teachings? What should I practice?
So in that way, the suit has actually crept into the forest
tradition from the sidelines and then actually got practiced in
the right way after all. So they're not.
Entirely devoid of suitors. But at the same time the suitors
were very often not mentioned at all there.
And so this is what we should be doing also in the present day
here we don't always have to mention the suitors, but
whatever we do teach should always be in line with the
suitors. It shouldn't be contrary to how
the Buddha taught. And sometimes I think it is
important that we update our language a little bit, that we
use certain modern ideas to kind of explain the Dumber from a
modern point of view so that actually we can deal with modern
problems. How do we deal with the war in
Ukraine? How would we think about that in
a way that actually is beneficial for us, that doesn't
lead to depression and sadness? How do we deal with things like
climate change in a way that. Accords with the Buddhist
teachings. And I have talked about these
things before. I think it's very important to
deal with that. How do we think about modern
psychology in terms of in connection with the Buddha's
teachings? Yeah, because because Buddhism
also is a kind of psychology. How does it match with our
modern outlook here? And all of these things can be
very interesting here if we present them in a way that
accords with the teachings of the Buddha, that does not
deviate from kind of the ideas that the Buddha himself gave
her. And so I think we should find
this balance in our life. Yes, I love to quote the suit as
and I love the suit as because to me they're very powerful and
beautiful. But I also like to bring in
contemporary ideas at the same time.
And so it is this balance in Buddhism, sometimes moving to
the suit as a, sometimes thinking about the contemporary
issues and then merging these things in a beautiful way to
bring out the Dhamma in a contemporary way that is
relevant to modern society, that is relevant to modern people.
We don't get too stuck in the past, but we also don't forget
the profound wisdom of the past and bring that with us into the
future and into the present. So there you are.
I, I didn't know I was going to talk so long, but anyway, so
there, that's kind of what happens.
We start talking just and so few thoughts for you about what is
real Buddhism, how to teach real Buddhism, and hopefully that
will be helpful for you. And if it is not helpful, now is
your chance to ask questions and to complain and to do whatever
here, OK? So please feel free to ask
questions if you have any, and also to if you want to challenge
anything I've said, you're very welcome to do that as well, of
course. Hi there.
Thank you for your talk. Hi, Yes, I just want to get your
opinion or idea on free will and whether we had it and where it
sits in Buddhism. OK.
Yeah. So this is actually a very large
topic. Yeah.
And really it deserves a talk on its own.
Right. So Are you ready for an hour's
talk? I have talked about this
actually before online, it's available and about free will.
And they kind of how it works for Buddhism.
And the the Buddhist teaching is largely about the idea that we
are conditioned through our past.
Yeah. And that conditioning will tend
to form who we are as human beings and including what we
choose. Yeah.
We cannot really choose our choices.
Our choices are largely determined by past conditioning
here. But then of course, when we talk
about determination in that that way, it does not mean the
classical determinism of Western philosophy whereby the future is
completely predetermined. The future must go this way.
Our choices matter in what happens for the future.
And that is a difference between the Buddhist idea of
determinism, if there is such a thing, compared to the kind of
classical Western ideas of determinism which says the
regardless of what you do, what you do is irrelevant.
The future is set already. What you do is not irrelevant at
all. It matters enormously in how the
future unfolds. And so our choices are largely
very, very strongly conditioned. And it's not hard to see that.
I mean, I look back in my life 30 years ago and I started, it
failed at the time that I had free will.
But when I look back, I realize actually I was very trapped in
my mindset and all of those kind of things.
But you also in the present, you also bring in the knowledge that
you have now, right in this moment, right now.
Yes, all the conditioning from the past.
But wait a minute, I also have Buddhism coming into my life of
the last few decades. I've just been reading this suit
as these are now conditioning my mind right now.
So let me stop for a second and ask what should be my choice
right now? And so you, this is how you
break that past conditioning, by stopping and allowing the
present conditioning to come in there.
Does that mean that there is free will?
Well, that is another question. Maybe that doesn't mean that,
but it actually allows you still to come out of your old
conditioning and not be trapped by it.
So whether there is a real free will or not is kind of moot
point. In Buddhism, it's very hard to
really kind of come down one side or the other on that
particular point. But there was another way of
thinking about freedom of will in Buddhism.
And this, to me is by far more interesting here.
And this is the idea that our choices are limited in the
present. Yeah.
So let's say that you have free will.
So what can you choose between? What?
You can only choose between those things that you know
about. And what you know about is
incredibly limited. You are limited by your
definements. You're limited by your delusion.
You're limited by points of view and your perceptions of the
world, which are all formed in a certain way.
So you can choose at lunch today between, I don't know, an apple
and a pear. Big deal, right?
You cannot choose things that you don't know about.
If I say to you choose to enter into deep state of meditation,
you haven't got that choice. For people who are not Buddhist,
for people who have no idea about spiritual teachings, that
choice is completely out of their mind because I have no
idea that these things even exist.
If you are a Buddhist, you can start to lean in that direction,
and then gradually you can develop your mind.
You can get rid of the delusion, You can get rid of those
deformers that block you from getting access to those things.
And eventually you may be able to choose those things.
And when you're able to choose deep meditation, you realize
this is what I should be doing all the longer.
But you didn't have access to them.
There's no way you could make that choice because basically
your mind wasn't ready for it. And that is the biggest problem
in the world. Freedom of choice is limited
because of our delusion, because of our definement, because of
our lack of understanding. We don't even know that these
insights and meditations are possible.
So how can we possibly choose them?
That is the real issue, huh? So ordinary freedom of will,
whether you can, you know, drink, you know, water, warm
water or cold water or have a pear or an apple, who cares
about that kind of freedom of will?
Now, what we really need to do is take away the limitations on
our minds, the kind of the barriers to seeing the world in
the right way. Then we can make choices we
never could do before. That is the real issue of
freedom of the welfare, and that is the issue we should focus on
now. Yeah.
OK, Very good. Yeah, John, thanks for the
inspiring talk, the online question.
He's listening to Dharma talk throughout our daily activity
bed. When will listening become a
hindrance in regards to during an activity?
OK, that's a very good question. I, my, my good friend went to
Sedato. He had a, he writes on this
blog, it's kind of a suitor central blog where they talk
about suitors and things like that.
And he had this article that he wrote and his article, the title
of his article was You are listening to too many Dharma
talks. And I thought, wow.
That actually is very insightful because there's a tendency for
people to listen to Dumber talk as if it is kind of lift music.
You're elevating elevator music, right?
It's kind of in the background, always kind of humming in the
background. But that is not really how we
should listen to the Dumber. We should listen to the Dumber,
giving it full attention, trying to understand what is going on,
trying to bring it into our heart in such a way that it
actually has meaning in our life.
Yeah, that is really how we should deal with the Dumber.
And if it is always in the background, very often you don't
doesn't really have any benefit. Yeah, it doesn't really.
Don't really take it on board. And it kind of it's, it's, it's
not ideal. And after a while you don't
never listen to the Dhamma properly anymore because it's so
used to kind of having it happening in the background.
You're so used to listening in that way that you are incapable
of really attending properly to the Dhamma talk.
Yeah. So I would say much more
important to listen to Dhamma talk once in a while, especially
when you need it. Yeah.
Read the sutas maybe before you go to bed in the evening.
So you can have you can dream about sutas at night.
That is a sign of a real Buddhist, the one who dreams
about suitors at night. Yeah.
Avin Zapachaya Sankara kind of can't imagine that one.
That would be really cool. So listen to the suitors
properly, try to understand what is going on.
Reflect on those suitors. The person is there like camera.
Is that right? That's way.
OK. Hi.
OK. So, so, and then you are really
doing it in the right way. The Buddha talks about this in
the suit as many different places.
Listen with an open heart, not an open heart.
Listen with that lending an ear. Try your very best to
understand, reflect on it afterwards and allow your view
of the world and your view of yourself to be affected by this.
So actually you change in the proper way.
That is the right way to listen to the Dumber.
So yes, indeed, you can listen to too many Dumber talks and
yes, so it's a very good question.
So thank you for bringing it up. And I think it is very, it's a
very appropriate thing to actually ask about.
So yes. Actually, is there anything to
watch out for if one tells the fake Dharma?
Or is that Musa Vada? It's it's not Musa.
It's only Musa vada. If you know that it is fake.
Yeah. And if you know it is fake and
you kind of present it as real, that is actually very bad.
It's one of the worst kind of Musa vada.
Yeah. Because, you know, OK, you don't
need the Buddha said you don't need to be moral.
Yeah, just kind of do whatever you want.
If you say that kind of thing, yeah, it is really, really bad
news because you're using the name of the Buddha to present
wrong teachings. So.
But it's also important to do 1's best to investigate.
If you have a doubt about something, don't just say it
because someone else has said it and trust your own judgement.
A lot of people in the world that come across as very
confident. They have no reason to be
confident at all, but they come across as very confident.
And so investigate and make sure that you do your best to find
out whether something really is the word of the Buddha or not.
Then you are doing the right thing.
Yeah. Really doing the right thing.
Yeah. And yes, it is time to go.
All right, Yeah. OK.
It's time to. We are told by the masters so
that it's time to go. So wonderful to see you all
again. And it's nice to see some old
faces. I see Ken at the back there.
Where is your good, Good Wife? Is she she in Malaysia?
All right, OK. She's missing out.
OK. And I saw Brendan at the back
there as well. Nice to see Brendan there.
It's cool. So, yeah.
So wonderful to see you all and so many familiar faces.
And I will be leaving again this afternoon.
And maybe if, if there kind of if life holds up and there are
no more COVID pandemics, maybe we'll see you again sometime in
the future. We'll see what happens there.
So. So shall we just pay respect to
the Boradam Sanger? Let's do the Arrohang samba
sambudo together. Yeah, yeah.