OK, so I guess we might as well start and the topic for today's
talk is going to be on letting go.
So I was just saying, just saying to Venom Mateji before we
came in here that talk about letting go.
And I said that's great. You can start with taking off
the face masks. It's a good point, isn't it?
Letting go is really nice. Sometimes.
We are getting rid of those face marks.
Really, really nice. So that is true and and letting
go is a very significant and important topic in the Buddhist
teachings. And I just had a a little kind
of interesting encounter just earlier on today.
This was back at the monastery. I just came in here this
afternoon and one of the old supporters of the monastery here
was standing close to where we have our meal everyday and I was
coming up the hill. Now if you know the monastery,
there's like a dam in the monastery.
And every time I walk to the place where we have the daily
meal, I have to come walk up the hill from the dam.
And then I see this old support for the monastery.
And I say to him when I come and say good morning here and he
says good morning here. And then he looks at me and he
says, you're getting old, Aren't you here usually, you know, what
do you respond? I wasn't sure what to say.
I thought, OK, you're getting old.
OK, fair enough. And it's actually, you know,
sometimes people get very offended when they hear this
kind of things. We don't really want to hear
that in our ordinary life. You're getting older.
You don't want to hear that from people who are.
I mean, he's very cheeky, old, old fellow.
So it's kind of OK. But actually, it is a very
useful thing to hear because when you hear that you're
getting older, it kind of brings back the reality of life.
Yeah, you're gradually becoming older, gradually moving in that
direction. That's just the way it is.
And when other people see that, well, it means it's becoming
quite obvious, right? So it's kind of a nice thing to
hear because it brings reality back into your mind.
And when reality hits you, and when it hits you very strongly,
it means that you tend to let go.
Yeah. You let go of the conceit of
being young. You let go of the conceit of,
you know, the body remaining the same forever for a long period
of time. And so, you know, I certainly
didn't get offended. I mean, I wouldn't get offended.
I know who was just being cheeky anyway, but actually there's
insight that is possible there. And the idea of letting go comes
from little insights like that. Yeah, suddenly something works,
something seems to be right, and then you change your attitude
and then you let go as a consequence.
So this idea of letting go is a very is an idea that you hear a
lot on the Buddhist path. Yeah, people talk about letting
go left, right and center, something we always hear about.
And you hear things like, oh, you got to let go of anger.
OK, so. OK, so I'll come back to that
later on. Exactly what that what that
means. But it's kind of you let go of
anger. Does that help you let go of
anger? Well, sometimes it does, but
often it doesn't. Just because someone tells you
let go of anger doesn't. It's not all that helpful
usually. But anyway.
Or you have to let or if you have a problem in meditation.
Yeah. What do people say?
Let go. Yeah.
When you let go, bang. Meditation goes deeper.
But again, it's kind of sometimes there's information
missing. Yeah, and this is one of the
things that I always wondered about.
When people say let go, exactly what does that mean?
First of all, what exactly are you supposed to let go of in
meditation? If someone says let go, it's a
bit kind of amorphous. What is it that we let go of in
meditation? And moreover, how do you
actually do it? Is there a way that helps us to
let go so as to kind of increase this process and make it work
properly? And I think these are very
important questions. And sometimes they are kind of
passed over in silence. We just say let go as if it is
obvious what we have to do. Actually, it is not not that
obvious at all. And in fact, the whole path of
Buddhism is really a path of letting go.
It's a gradual letting go. So I'll have a look at that path
of gradual letting go from the beginning all the way to the
end. But one of the things, coming
back to the idea of meditation again, one of the things that I
found very interesting about letting go in meditation is that
you hear different ideas about what it means.
And if you read the suitors, if you read the word of the Buddha,
what he says that you have to let go of in order to enable
meditation to happen, usually it is the sensory world, you know,
the sensory world or sensuality that is the problem.
And when you let go of that, then the meditation happens.
But then when you go to the listen to Ajam Brahm, what does
Ajam Brahm say? Well, one of the things that
Ajam Brahm often says is that you have to let go of the doer.
You know, the doing is the problem, the activity of the
mind, that is what you have to let go of.
And I always thought this is a bit strange.
Yeah. Who is right?
Is the Buddha writer or is Ajam Brahm writer?
Can't be both. Yeah.
Because this is contradictory. Doing and sensuality is not the
same thing. So one of them must be wrong.
Yeah, What if the Buddha is wrong?
Yeah, Ajam Brahm is right. That's kind of scary thought.
What if the Ajam Brahm is wrong and the Buddha both?
Both ideas are too scary to contemplate.
So I thought maybe there's a way of unifying this.
Maybe these are just different angles on the same thing.
Yeah. And the answer is, and I'm, I'm
going to say this straight away because this is, I think, a very
interesting point of Dhamma in about how the progress of
meditation actually works. This is just two angles on the
same thing. Letting go of sensuality is
seeing the idea of letting go from one point of view and
letting go of the doer is actually a different angle on
the same problem. It may not be obvious at all.
Yeah, you may think I'm I'm kidding you maybe think this
what what you're talking about. And this is one of the things I
want to bring out in this talk why that actually is the case.
But actually it is the same kind of thing.
Yeah. So this is what I want to have a
look at. But before I get into the kind
of the gradual idea of letting go, I was going to read out some
verses, Buddhist verses for you. We don't normally read out very
much on Friday night talks, but I thought I would be daring and
read something out on a Friday night.
Please forgive me if it doesn't work out, but we'll see.
We'll see what happens. So these verses I'm going to
read out is from the Teri Gatta. Teri Gatta, a very famous
scriptures in the Pali Teravada tradition.
And for those of you who don't know these words, Teri Gatta
Gatta means verse, and Terry actually means a senior nun.
Yeah. When someone becomes a Terra, it
means you have 10 years of standing as a monastic.
So Terry is the gut are the verses of the senior nuns.
And this is an entire book in the Poly Canon.
Yeah. And sometimes on the in
Buddhism, we find that the kind of the voices of women are not
there. And people say, I would like to
have some women as my kind of examples.
And I think that makes good sense.
Yeah, that we somehow we identify a little bit more with
our gender than the opposite gender.
So it kind of makes sense that women also would like to hear
women's voices. Doesn't have to be always one or
the other, but at least also. So this book is very interesting
because it's one of the few scriptures where there really is
a lot of women's voices in the Buddhist teachings.
And there's a whole bunch of these theories, a large number
of them. I'm not sure how many there is.
I'm not sure if there was 100, but maybe there was a hundred of
them. Probably not that many, but
close. And there are mostly Arahans.
Yeah, mostly fully enlightened nuns.
So these are really cool verses. These are the verses spoken by
cool people. Because in Buddhism, yeah, it's
the highest kind of coolness, is to be an Arahan.
You're completely cool, utterly cool.
You don't even have to wear sunglasses.
You're cool already here. So this is the great thing about
this Arahan nuns. So please forgive me for being
silly. So let's see what they have to
say here. And what do they have to say
about letting go? Yeah.
How does it work out? Because they're obviously
discussing their own practice and how they became Arahansa.
And this is just a few selected verses that kind of have this
idea of letting go in a fairly strong way.
So this first verses here are is from a a nun called Dantica.
Dantica means one who has teeth. Is it a slightly strange name?
But anyway, so this is what she has to say.
She says. Leaving my day's meditation on
the Vulture Peak mountain, I saw an elephant on the riverbank,
having just come up from his bath.
A man taking a pole with a hook asked the elephant.
Give me your foot. The elephant presented his foot
and the man mounted him. Seeing a wild beast so tamed,
submitting to human control, my mind became serene.
That is why I've gone to the forest.
That's kind of interesting. And this is obviously letting
go. Yeah, this letting go because
she's saying that her mind became serene.
Serenity is like calm. It's like peace.
It's like, you know, those kind of qualities.
Free freedom from defilements if you like.
And all she does, she has this insider.
She sees this elephant that is submitting to the leadership by
a person. And when she sees that, her mind
becomes serene. It's an inside into nature, and
it's almost hard to grasp exactly what is going on.
But I think the idea here is that when you see nature just
behaving, just following the laws of nature, the elephant, or
submitting without making any resistance, it gives you the
idea that the meditation practice, the path of Buddhism,
is like that. You can't do and have any
resistance. You can't have any ego, which
kind of enmeshes itself into your activity and actions.
You have to go with the flow. And when you go with the flow
and you allow things to be here, that is when you become serene.
This is very much what meditation here is about.
Yeah. Allowing your mind to become
peaceful. Not making it peaceful, but
allowing it to become peaceful. 2 very different things.
It's like the letting go. It gives an idea of what letting
go is about on the Buddhist path.
It comes from some kind of insider.
It's related to seeing something in the right way.
Then letting go happens. Gives an idea how we should go
about letting go in our own practice.
Let's hear one more verse. This is from a nun called Siha
and Siha in parli means a lion. So this means like the lioness.
So this kind of like sounds like a scary nun but anyway, let's
see what else she has to say. So she This is a couple of
verses I've left out, but here we go.
So overcome by corruptions, pursuing perceptions of the
beautiful, I gained no Peace of Mind under the sway of lustful
thoughts. Thin and pale.
For seven years I wandered full of pain, finding no happiness by
day or night. Taking a rope, I entered deep
into the forest, thinking it is better that I hang myself when I
return to a lesser life. I made a strong noose.
I tied it to the branch of a tree.
Casting it around my neck, my mind was freed.
Pretty dramatic, yeah. But kind of, as I say, don't try
this at home, as I say, because you can have.
This is not going to work if you try it usually you have to be
ready. Yeah.
So this is just like it happens almost less by accident.
This is not, obviously not nothing to do with the Buddhist
path, but there's something in her which is ready.
And then when she does something traumatic, it allows insight to
arise. And in this case, I think it is
just the idea of death. Yeah, You are about to die, for
goodness sake, you know? And at that moment when you see
that you're about to die, then all these desires for the
worldly things become empty. They become pointless.
You're gonna die. What does the world matter for
you anymore? And because she lets go of the
world at that moment, it allows the mind to become freed inside,
leading to letting go. The same idea.
So this is just to give you a, a feeling for how some of this is
plays out in some of these suitors.
I have one more for you. I'll, I'll read it out later on,
but I'll, I'll put that to one side for now.
So this is the idea of a little bit of the idea of letting go.
It gives you an idea of what we are doing here.
Yeah, there's some kind of insight.
And the main insight that we are looking for when we're dealing
with letting go is to understand where happiness is to be found
and where suffering is to be found.
And when you understand in the proper way where happiness is to
be found and where suffering is to be found, your mind will
automatically lean towards happiness and let go of the
suffering. Yeah, this is the main insight.
And when you remember that, then you will know what you need to
do if there is a problem. Yeah, If you need to advance on
the path in a certain way here. So let's take the idea of anger.
Yeah, because I'd mentioned it at the beginning.
Yeah. And it's very common for people
to say, yeah, let go of anger. And you think, OK, And sometimes
if you are ready, you will be able to let go of anger.
Very often it's not that helpful because if you really are in the
throes of anger, if it has taken deep root in your mind, it's
actually very hard to just let go like that.
Yeah, It's not something that you can do.
And sometimes if people tell you to let go, you get even more
angry, right? You know what it's like.
What? Shut up.
Sometimes that's the way it goes.
So how then do we do it? And actually, it's, again the
same thing. Yeah.
The idea of understanding where happiness is to be found and
where suffering is to be found. You start off by understanding
the problems of anger. Why is anger problematic?
Well, it doesn't feel very good. Yeah, we can all probably agree
on that. You feel agitated.
You feel restless. You feel you want to run back
and forth, steaming, steaming with anger.
Depending on how angry you are, you can be a little bit angry
and really angry, of course, but it's not a good feeling.
If you compare a state of calm, a state of peace to a state of
anger is obviously which one is preferable.
Yeah, you know that. And you can see the danger of
anger. It makes you act irrationally
here. It makes you do stupid things to
the people around you. Yeah.
It makes you feel bad afterwards, after you get angry
and after you deal with people in a bad way.
You just feel bad about yourself, and if you're angry a
lot, you accumulate that bad feelings inside and they grow
inside of you. So you actually become the worst
person. As a consequence, you're
building up all of these negative feelings.
So notice that inside of yourself.
See the negative consequences of anger because this is a very
powerful motivation for giving up the anger.
This is the kind of thing that allows you to let go.
And then on the other hand, you also remember the positive side.
Yeah, of not being angry, being peaceful, having compassion,
having a sense of even of kindness and even love for the
people around you. It's a very beautiful state of
mind where you feel really at ease, you feel good about
yourself. So you remember the happiness on
the other side of the anger, the alternative state of mind that
we can have. Yeah.
And then you're here building up the building blocks that will
enable you to let go of ill will and anger in the future.
And the very last thing that you need is some little kind of
method, a little way of contemplating on top of what
I've been saying now, what I've been saying now is contemplation
we can do all the time. But at the moment of anger, you
need sometimes something else to contemplate as well.
That is the thing that takes you away from anger.
Yeah. And that is not that hard to do.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to overcome anger if you
really want to. And in a place like this, in the
Buddhist society here, where there are so many people who are
really trying their best to do what is right and to live well,
it is quite easy. All you have to do when you get
angry, you're focusing on the bad qualities in the person.
When you're not getting angry, when you have kindness towards
somebody, friendliness towards someone, you're focusing on
their good qualities. So all you have to do shift your
attention from looking at the bad to looking at the good.
Remind yourself these are good people.
Why am I being so petty? Yeah, we're all petty.
Yeah. Sometimes the mind is just
petty. We focus on stupid things.
Why do we do that? Because bad habits, something
like that. So, mind, don't be so petty.
Yeah. Get your act together.
Be smarter in how you deal with things.
Then you shift your attention from those stupid little things
that we think about and you remember the big picture.
These are good people. They're trying their very best
to live well. What a wonderful thing that is.
Even that intention to wanting to live well is such a beautiful
thing. I should honour that in these
people. Yeah.
I should actually bow down to them.
That's what I should do. Because isn't that what we do to
the Buddha? We bow down to the Buddha.
Why? Well, because he is the
manifestation of all the good qualities in the world.
We don't bow down to a lump of metal.
What we bow down to is the qualities that this image
signifies. Yeah, the idea of Buddhahood,
the idea of awakening itself, that is what we bow down to
because that is what the Buddha is.
And then you overcome that anger because you remember the good
qualities. It is actually very simple, and
it works. It's a very, very powerful way
of dealing with things. Yeah.
But you have to remember those good qualities, build them up
inside of you, then shift your attention and, bang, the ill
will is gone. So this is how you let go of
anger. You don't just tell someone let
go of anger. You have to have a clear
strategy for how to do it. Another way of doing it is
sometimes we meet people who don't.
We cannot see the good qualities in yeah, maybe it's a stranger,
maybe it's someone we find just difficult to deal with,
whatever. And then you have compassion for
the person instead. Cannot see the good qualities in
them. Have compassion for them.
If they are habitually bad, if they don't have many good
qualities, wow, they really deserve compassion.
They are in darkness. They don't know what they're
doing. They think they're creating
happiness for themselves when actually they're creating
suffering for themselves. Isn't that kind of terrible?
Yeah. When people go around in the
world thinking they're doing what is right but actually doing
what is wrong, and they're creating unhappiness for
themselves and everyone around them, you think, wow, you know,
I wish I could show you the light because you are really
confused. And then you have compassion for
people like that. Yeah.
Turn your mind around, away from this kind of feeling of
negativity when they treat you badly to have compassion
instead. So this is how the idea of
letting go works? Yeah, the idea, you know that
there is a problem here. It is some kind of suffering
involved with this. You know that there is a more
happy state over here and then you have a means to go from the
suffering to the happy state. That is how letting go happens.
And as you become skilled in using these tools, you can you
can effect change like that. Yeah, it's so fast in the path
really, really quickly and bang your mind switches from one to
the other. Please use these techniques
because they are really, really powerful.
And if you're able to do this kind of thing, wow, you're going
to make massive progress because the root of the problem really
is our emotional reactions to the world around us.
And then so many other things on the path fall into place as a
consequence. I teach this teaching a lot
because I think it is so important.
Yeah. It is so fundamental to the
life. And I think everyone has more
ill will and anger in their life than they would like.
Is anyone here who has less anger than they would like?
No one. Right.
I was right. I got that one right.
OK. At least I got that right.
That's that's good. Yeah, almost everyone.
You almost have to be an arrogant otherwise.
So that is the idea of how it works in general.
So let us have a look at some of the various aspects of the
Buddhist path and how to apply this.
So apart from anger, we have the general idea of morality in
Buddhism. Yeah, the idea of just generally
being kind, whether through action, speech or mind, avoiding
the bad things. How can we move faster?
This is the question. How can we let go more of the
bad habits and move faster on to the good habits?
Well, again, it is about reflecting on the negative
consequences of the bad habits they have, the bad speech, the
negative actions, the bad thoughts, and reminding yourself
of these things that they actually are dangerous.
They are dangerous because every time you do something bad or
wrong, you're taking one step backwards.
Do you want to take a step backwards?
Life is so short. You only have so many steps.
If you take one step back, it means you have one less forward.
Yeah, that's concerning here. Don't forget, there's only so
many steps. A journey of 1000 miles begins
with a single step. Even if it's 1000 miles, how
many steps per mile? OK, this is going to be a hard
one, but maybe 3000 steps per mile or something like.
And then the 1000 miles is 3,000,000 steps.
OK, regardless, there isn't much time.
Yeah, this is the problem. We cannot really afford to take
steps backwards. And every time we take a step
backward, actually taking many steps backward, because you are
reinforcing those bad habits. So try to remember why these
things are problematic. Yeah.
They block you on the path. They stop you from achieving
meditation because every time you do something bad, it leaves
an imprint on your mind that blocks your ability to meditate
later on. It's like a darkness, a smudge
on your mind, a stain inside which blocks you from being able
to meditate properly. So try to see that.
And as you see, that becomes clear.
I can't afford to do anything bad.
Yeah. Every thought has to be good.
That's how. OK.
You won't succeed in that, right?
That's that's OK. But at least you have that idea.
And you're leaning in that direction.
And then you see the consequences of a good actions.
You look inside of yourself. You know, every time you're kind
to somebody, you feel good about yourself.
Have you noticed that when you actually really want to be kind
to someone, with a good speech, with the kind act, with a kind
thought, you feel satisfied afterwards, you know that you
have done the right thing. When you ask someone for
forgiveness, or you give someone for forgiveness, or you do the
right, you know all of these things feel really good and you
know that you're heading in the right direction.
And then as you accumulate that goodness, you're brightening up
your mind, shining up your mind, creating a mind that is very
conducive for meditation practice later on.
Every moment matters. Every action is important.
This is what you start to see because you can feel it.
You can feel the connection between your intentions and the
feelings that arise because of those intentions.
The connection becomes so obvious.
So this is how then you move away.
You let go of the bad actions. Yeah, by seeing the vadnais,
seeing the positive benefit of good actions.
You let go of 1. And what do you do with the
others? Do you let go of those as well,
or do you grasp onto them? You grasp onto them a little bit
at least. This is one of those important
points that you need to understand about the Buddhist
path is that it is a bit like climbing a ladder.
And when you climb a ladder, you have to grasp onto the rungs.
If you don't grasp on the rungs, you're not going to go very far.
You have to grasp onto the rungs.
Yeah. And the way you climb a ladder
is you put your hand up to 1 rung higher, and only when you
grasp a higher rung can you let go with your feet of the rung
below. Yeah.
So, so to able enable us to climb a ladder, we need to grasp
one rung higher each time until we get to the very top.
And the Buddhist path is a bit like that.
If you're going to let go of something which is worse, which
is detrimental, which is spiritually bad for you, first
of all, you have to grab onto something higher.
Then you can let go of the thing underneath.
So yes, you actually need to grab on to morality at least a
little bit. Yeah, because in the beginning
it is not easy to always be moral.
Unless you make some kind of determination, some kind of
grabbing, it's not going to work out.
OK, I'm not going to kill those blooming mosquitoes, right?
I hate mosquitoes. But still, I know it is bad, so
I'm not going to do it. That's how you have to do
things. Yeah.
Don't hate the mosquitoes if you can't, if you can avoid it.
But sometimes it's hard not to hate mosquitoes.
We've all been there. Yeah.
When they buzz around in your bedroom at night.
Actually, I don't really hate mosquitoes so much anymore, but
I I certainly remember having hated mosquitoes in the past.
We all have a bad past, right? There's no, it's not even that.
So you grab onto the high rung. And this is a very important
idea because one of the things that you find in the suitors,
they have one thing they call the one of the fetters that you
give up when you become a stream entry.
One of those fetters fetter is something that binds you to
existence. It's called Si la Bata Paramasa.
And this means grabbing onto virtue and practices.
Yeah. So it says that.
Well, we give up that fettery. In other words, we stop grabbing
onto virtue or morality and practices when we become a
stream mentor. Some of the people think that
means I must stop grabbing onto them now.
Wrong. That is the wrong way to think.
We need that as a stepping stone to enable us to read stream
entry. Only then do we give it up.
In the meantime, hold on. Don't hold on too hard, but hold
on a little bit. The same thing with the
practices. Yeah.
The practices of that we do to enable us on this path, like
coming here on a Friday night. So please come here on Friday
nights. Yeah, it's a good practice.
It's a good habit. It's nice to see many of you
coming every Friday. That's marvellous.
Of course, sometimes you miss out.
That's OK. But, you know, make have certain
routines and practices in your life that encourage you and move
you in the right direction. Hold on to those a little bit.
Yeah. Come here every Friday night, do
a bit of meditation every morning or every evening at home
if you can. Have some general acts of
generosity that you do on a regular basis.
Say kind things on a regular basis.
Have these little routines, these little practices in your
life that you hold onto. Bow down to the Buddha.
Yeah, because it is beautiful to bow down to something noble.
That's why we bow down to the Buddha.
Do that. Make that a practice as well.
And as you do all of these beautiful practices, it
encourages you in the right direction.
Then eventually you let go and those practices no longer, you
don't have to hold on to them anymore.
In the meantime, hold on to them a little bit.
This is how you move from the good to the bad.
Yeah. Gradually, gradually, gradually
seeing the negative, seeing the positive, and then having this
beautiful path in between. There is another very important
thing that we often grab onto in life, which also the Buddha
talks about, and this is views, yeah, views and opinions
famously, and this is spoken of by the Buddha in many places.
It's called the diti upadana. Upadana means attaching A
grasping diti is view. In Pali.
It literally means seeing. Yeah, seeing of you.
So with views, yeah. Views are part and parcel of
life. You have to have views.
You cannot live a life without views.
Yeah, this is just what it means to have a sense of self.
Views come with a sense of self, so you're going to have views.
So one of the things we have to learn to deal with those views
in a skilful way. So one of the things is to kind
of shift our views. Yes.
They become more aligned with spiritual practice or more
aligned with the view of the Buddha, if you like.
This is one of the reasons why we study the teachings of the
Buddha, to have more views aligned with how the Buddha did
things. So yeah, remember the Buddha
taught his views for a reason. He taught them because these are
views that, as far as he was concerned, align with reality.
This is the reality of the world.
And if you haven't got the view that aligns with the reality,
you will not be able to practice correctly because first of all,
you have to see things in the right way.
If you think this is a bottle of water, when it acts as a bell,
you have a problem. You try to drink and we're going
to get in the water out of it. Yeah.
So wrong view leads to suffering.
Yeah. You have to grab the glass.
Then you are in business. That's much more happiness.
I'm just going to test the happiness.
Yes. Proof of the pudding.
Yeah. So views are really important
because they guide the entire path.
They guide you to do the right thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's why they matter. So one of the important things
then is to kind of gradually change our views and to enable
us to change our views. We have to hold our views
lightly. Yeah.
Don't be one of those cocksure people in the world who's
absolutely certain about things in life.
It's mad to be absolutely certain about things.
How can we sometimes? You know you, when you go on the
Internet, people seem to be so utterly certain about
themselves. And it's kind of crazy, you
know, that someone who's that certain is actually deluded.
They're not certain at all. They go to completely wrong.
How can we be at certain amount of things in life?
Yeah, it's just impossible. So be humble about your own
views. Understand that they are, you
know, liable to change. You look at other people in
society, you see how people change their views all, all the
time. They go from one political
position to another one. They go from one religion to
another one, from religion to no religion, whatever it is,
they're always changing. So how certain can those views
be? It's kind of obvious and not all
that certain. So we hold on to those views
very with less force. We are more humble about what we
actually know and then our worldview becomes more
malleable. It doesn't mean that we listen
to everyone and take on board what other people say
uncritically. It doesn't mean that at all.
In fact, we realise other people's views are equally
conditional and equally uncertain.
It just means that we become more open, we become more
listening, but we still, if we think the other person is wrong
and we are right, of course we still hold on to what we believe
is right. And one of the beautiful ways of
doing this, I was just teaching a very famous suit by the Buddha
at the monastery on Wednesday. That's one of the great nice
things about being the monastery.
Teaching the monks is actually, it's actually really nice.
It's different from teaching here because the monks, they are
more what are they more? Got to be careful what I say now
The, the, the, the monks are the monks are a bit more learned in
Dunmar. As long as you get really,
really tough questions. Yeah.
And actually, I, I enjoy getting tough questions because then you
makes you think, yeah. So we're doing the suit, the
same suit that we're going to do here on Sunday.
By the way, Cosena just mentioned the suit of the D
gandhicar #1 we're going to do on Sunday here.
And in the suta, the suta is about 62 kinds of wrong view.
Yeah, 62 wrong views. And the Buddha says all of these
are, you know, wrong, basically. And, and you'd be surprised.
What is in there is like, you know, things like create a God,
Yeah. Things like cosmic
consciousness, Yeah. This kind of stuff.
Yeah. Basically, it doesn't work
according to the Buddha. So then he says, and this is
very interesting, yeah. Because then he analysis, where
do these views come from? Why do we have these views?
And this is actually very fascinating.
And the reason that it's fascinating is because usually
the way we think about our views is that we have arrived at at
those views through some kind of rational process.
Yeah, I have thought about these views.
This view makes sense. I've weighed up all the
evidence, and this must be right.
This must be wrong. Yeah.
This is how we tend to think about our views.
And of course, there is that some degree of truth to that.
There is partly A rational process.
But what the Buddha points say that is that the views really
come from feelings. Isn't that kind of amazing?
Yeah, it's kind of extraordinary when you see that because it
gets so counter to how we normally think about the world.
If a view feels good to us, then we have that view.
Yeah. So for example, you may grow up
in a certain way, You grow up with a certain family, with a
certain viewpoint of the world. And because those viewers maybe
feel good to you, you carry on those views.
You grew up as a Christian, so you carry on being Christian
because it feels good to be a Christian.
Or you grow up as a Buddhist and you carry on being good because
it feels good. But please carry on being a
Buddhist, by the way. But I'm just saying it also
because it feels good, maybe because I grew up that way.
So much of our views, our feelings.
Yeah. Or because all our mates, you
know, all our mates vote for a certain party, we vote for the
same party. That's our view.
It's the best party. Well, why?
Well, because it's kind of hard to go against what all your
friends say, right. So you kind of that feels good
to you again. So views are in a very large
part come from feelings. And when you start to see that
you don't take your views so seriously anymore.
Yeah. Because you realise they are
very unreliable there. It depends on whether your
feelings are reliable or not in that particular instance.
That is very hard to say. Yeah, this is a great way of
analysing your views. And the Buddha says that.
So look at that. And when you do that, you can
hold your views more likely. And when you hold your views
more likely, it has lots of great consequences.
You have less arguments in the world.
Yeah. If someone challenges you, says,
well, you know, you superstitious Buddhist, you
believe in rebirth, you know, that kind of nonsense.
You think, yeah, whatever. Yeah.
You know, you don't fight back because there's no need to fight
back. Yeah.
And you just kind of shrug your shoulders.
Yeah. We'll see what happens.
It doesn't mean you give up your view of rebirth because that
would be also very silly just because someone tells you you're
superstitious. But there's no need to fight
about it. And you kind of let it go quite
easily. That is 1 benefit, Yeah.
Less fighting in the world. Second benefit, it's easier to
have a malleable idea of reality, easy to change your
views, and then gradually, hopefully, moving in the right
direction as a consequence. So that's views.
Yeah. How to not grasp onto views, How
to let go of our views and move in the right direction.
But now I want to talk about meditation practice because that
is sort of where I was talking at the very beginning.
Yeah. And this obvious is a very
important part of it. Yeah.
Let go, they say. Let go, let go.
OK. What happens?
Yeah. And we know the feeling.
You meditate, Maybe you come here sometimes and you feel
quite peaceful and you come to a certain level.
Yeah. Maybe especially when you go on
a meditation retreat, it goes to a certain level, It stops why it
doesn't go any further. And next day stops at roughly
the same place. Why doesn't it go any further?
And the reason why it doesn't go any further because you're
holding on to something that is the reason.
And very often you can't even see that.
Yeah, it is not obvious. You feel peaceful.
Everything feels fine. Doesn't feel like you're holding
on to anything. But there is a grasping there.
And the grasping is too subtle for you really to see what is
going on. Yeah.
So this is the problem that we are faced with.
So what are the things that we are grasping at at that
particular point? And the answer is, generally
speaking, it is the external world that we are holding on to.
Our physical body is an important part of it.
Or anything that comes through the five senses.
Yeah, that's the entire external world.
We're not able to let go of those senses.
We're not able to let go of the body.
That is the big problem. And in the suitors, the Buddha
has a beautiful phrase for this. He says that if you want to
attain samadhi, samadhi being deep meditation, the way to
attain samadhi, Samadhi should become an obligatory word in the
English language. Such a beautiful word, samadhi.
It's this really very, very Indian spiritual word which
means deep meditation. We have nothing like it in the
English language because we are lacking so much spiritual
vocabulary. It's not just English, by the
way, it's kind of the whole European languages are lacking
this spiritual vocabulary. India is full of it because
India has this very powerful spiritual tradition here.
Samadhi, Let's take, let's take it on board and whack it into
the Oxford English Dictionary and get it kind of certified
once and for all. I think actually it's there
already. Probably, yeah, Samadhi and a
few words like that. So what the Buddha says about
attaining samadhi, he says the following.
He says wasaga ramnan karitva samadhi labati wasaga ramnan.
Wasaga means letting go, basically.
A Ramanang is a foundation, Karitva having made, having made
a foundation through letting go, you attain samadhi, you attain
deep meditation. That's what the Buddha is
saying. Yeah.
So you need to let go. And the the sangha here, the
thing that you let go of is precisely that sensory world,
giving up your five senses, giving up your attachment to the
body. And as you do that, that is when
meditation becomes possible. Yeah.
And this is challenging because this goes really against the
grain of the world when we talk like this.
But it's also the case when you go to the five hindrances.
Yeah. The five hindrance of
meditation, The very first one is called the Kamachanda.
Yeah. Which means the desire for the
sensory world. That's really what it means.
Yeah. This is the most powerful of
those five hindrances. This is also what blocks you
from deep meditation. So how can we do this?
It sounds almost, how can we overcome that sensory world,
right? It's just so, it seems so
impossible. We're so enmeshed in that
sensory world. And the way to do it is actually
to go buy it, buy this, do this very gradually.
That is really the way to do it. And it is always possible.
If you look at the world in the right way, it is possible to
just withdraw a little bit from that sensory world and all you
have to do is see the disadvantages in that world
around you. I've recently been talking a
little bit about people who suffer from things like climate
anxiety. Yeah, people say, oh, what's
happening to the climate in the world?
Is it going down the drain? Are we all doomed?
Is it kind of, is the ocean going to rise by 50 metres or
what's, what's going to happen over the next, you know,
whatever number of years and people have climate?
And I think personally, I think there's pretty good grounds for
having a bit of anxiety for the climate.
Yeah, I think there's really good grounds for that.
Or pandemics or political instability in the world, or all
the refugees and the streams of migration happening around the
world. There's so many problems, and we
don't seem up to dealing with it.
Yeah, that's the basic reality. We don't seem to be able to do
it. Human beings just haven't got it
together. That seems to be the reality.
I guess we are trying in our own way, but we can't really get it
together. So what is the response?
Well, one response is to be anxious.
Oh, no. The world is going down the
drain. What's going to happen to my
life? My life is going to be ruined.
It's my parents faults. Their generation.
Yeah. They ruin the world for me, my
grandparents, my parents, and now.
But it's a stupid way of thinking.
Yeah. Because all it leads to a sense
of despair, a sense of blame, a sense of all of these negative
kind of things. It is not really conducive,
because the point is that if you think in the right way, your
future does not depend so much on the what's happening in the
external world. Yes, the external world
obviously has some effect on us. If it gets hotter, if the ocean
rises, if the political instability, yes, it will be
painful to some extent, but only to some extent.
Your future is made by your conduct, Your future is made by
the quality of your heart. Your future is made by how you
live your life. If you live your life well with
kindness, with care, with compassion, with understanding,
with peace, with all of these kind of things, then you will
have a bright future regardless, whether in this life, but
especially, of course, in future life, but also in this life,
because the whole world becomes brighter.
When your inner world becomes brighter, things become more.
You can over, you can deal with things in a much better way.
When you do that, that is where your future is made.
Yeah, in our inner life. And by thinking in this way, you
are taking away some of the attraction in the external
world. You're seeing the external world
for what it is, troublesome, uncertain, unreliable, having no
idea where it's going to go next.
Yeah. And then you're letting go a
little bit. You're letting go a little bit
of that entire world in one go. All the senses, even your
interest in your own body. Yeah.
You look yourself in the mirror. Oh, I look older today.
Or someone comes up to you with cheek and I say, ah, you
actually, you're looking older. What's going on with you?
Like going on with you? I'm just getting old.
That's what you know. That's life.
And it shows you the body can't control it, can't control the
external world. Let it all go.
Then when you let it go, this is a simple way of doing it.
You don't have to do the Asuba meditation or anything like
that. Then the meditation becomes
deeper, then it starts to happen.
This is how you can do this in a simple way, seeing the positive,
understanding the negative, guiding the mind in the right
direction. And it's wonderful to live for
the inner life rather than live for the external life.
It's becomes a very beautiful way of living where everything
you do is to try to live well, try to be kind and caring,
understanding, unselfish. It's a wonderful thing when you
turn your life in that direction.
Don't don't have to become a monastic to do that.
You can do that in lay life. But that is what we need to do.
So what then about this thing that I started out with when I
said that? Well, Azambram says, you know,
let go of the doing, right? The Buddha says let go of the
sensory world. And Zambram says letting go of
the doing. What is the connection?
And the connection is that as long as we are interested in the
sensory world, the world outside, there are things to be
done. Yeah.
Because that world demands action.
That world is involved with craving because we want things
in that world. We want to have enough things to
look after us. We want to have, you know,
enough money in a big enough house.
We want to have a nice relationship.
We want to have a good prestige. We want to, we want to be
important. We want to be well liked by
people around us. There's endless desires in that
world and that world. You cannot live in that world
without desire. But the whole nature of that
world is that it's filled up with craving.
As long as you enjoy that world, you will have desires.
You will crave. And when you have craving and
desires, there are things to be done, right?
That's what craving does. Craving makes you restless.
Craving makes you act. Craving makes you run after
things this way or that way, like a headless chicken.
Sometimes you see people in their life, they're so busy,
always running around, and it gives them a buzz when they run
around. The reason they give them a buzz
because there is an additional factor, the sense of identity we
identify with the doing so it also gives us a buzz to do as
well. So they are intimately connected
with each other. Yeah.
Doing in the sensory world are two sides of the same coin.
And what that means is that there is an alternative way of
overcoming that sensory world, and that is by understanding the
danger of doing it. Yeah.
Understand that doing itself is actually quite unpleasant.
And for those of you who have had some success in meditation
practice, who sometimes become peaceful, who sometime allow
yourself to let go of all the activity, you will know that
peace is far superior to doing. Doing is like this itch.
It's like this compulsion always driving your honour.
But when you become peaceful, it's cool.
Yeah. It's relaxing.
It is easeful. It is far superior to activity.
So this then is an alternative way of dealing with that sensory
world? Yeah.
Allowing yourself to become cool, allowing yourself to calm
down. And as you do that, the sensory
world itself starts to fade because you're taking away the
craving, the thing that drives this world on.
So this is the way to think about meditation practice.
So there's two things. Yeah.
When people say let go in meditation, there's two things
to remember. What that means.
It means letting go of the sensory world.
Of course, if you're angry in meditation, you have let go of
the anger first of all. But assuming you have already
gone past that, let's go of the sensory world.
Yeah. And then the alternative way is
to look at the activity. Let go, reduce the activity.
That is what we have to do in meditation.
And what I told you just before are some of the methods, some of
the of the ways of achieving that, looking at the world in
the right way so you can achieve that kind of letting go.
So what next? There is more.
I'm coming to the very end now. I promise.
Please don't go yet. We're coming to the we're coming
to the end. Let me just read out this last.
I promise to read out, read out this last verse.
So this is about how to take the letting go all the way to the
end. This is a bikini called
Patachara. Not that I think this is a
different patachara from the one that we normally hear about, but
there seem to have been a few patacharas.
And this is what she has to say. Here I am accomplished in
morality here I do the teachers bidding here, being neither lazy
nor restless. Why then do I not achieve
Nirvana? Having washed my feet, I took
note of the water. Seeing the foot washing water
flowing from high ground to low, my mind became serene, like a
fine thoroughbred horse. Then, taking a lamp, I entered
my dwelling, inspected the bed and sat down.
Then, grabbing the pin, I drew out the Wick.
The liberation of my heart was like the quenching of the lamp.
It's beautiful, isn't it? The idea of being liberated.
You draw out the Wick from the lamp.
The lamp goes out in the same way you quench the mind.
Yeah, you attain Nirvana in that way.
Yeah, again, there's this insight that arises when the
lamp goes out. Just like the lamp going out.
All my craving, everything bam, goes out.
I become cool like the lamp. Yeah, Quenched, as it says here.
So this is the final thing. Yeah, that we have to do on the
path when the meditation takes you all the way to samadhi.
Yeah, that is when you have the chance for really profound
insight. What is that insight?
It is more of the same. I've just been teaching all the
way through about seeing suffering and happiness, and
that even that last insight is actually seeing the distinction
between suffering and happiness, where they're suffering and
where there's happiness. It's just that now you see it
completely here. And when you see it completely
here, you see that the whole world is on fire.
The whole world is problematic. Yeah.
And then the lamp goes out. Yeah.
The craving comes to an end, and bang, you are freed once and for
all. And that is the end of the
Buddhist path. OK everyone, so there you are, a
little talk on letting go. So please say Sadu if you like
him, just make it clear. We come to the end.
So, OK, so do we have any questions from anyone or any
comments about this or? OK, great.
Thank you. Thank you.
Is there anyone in the hall who would like to ask a question or
comment? First of all, because usually we
can allow the people here to go first.
Sorry, Prem. OK.
Yeah, Yeah, Prem, we want to go first.
Prem. Thank you, Hajan.
The various effort, right effort as well plays a big role in
letting go, isn't it? And the ways of applying your
mind to take the very or to the way how you how you take the
effort you think of the long Sansara and that makes you.
Let go quicker. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah.
Effort is absolutely part of this.
The effort here, you know, in letting go to me is a lot of
that is the effort of reflecting.
Yeah, reflecting in the right way.
And that's what you're saying now, thinking about Sangsara in
the right way. So reflecting on where happiness
is to be found, where suffering is to be found, making that
distinction and then moving from one to the other.
Yeah. That's the really the
reflection. And also reflecting on the means
for achieving that, for moving in between them.
So reflection is fundamental to the Buddhist path.
And that is indeed an A very important aspect of right
effort. Yeah.
Thank you. Absolutely.
Thank you. Yeah.
Bramley, Eddie, thank you for the wonderful, really deep talk,
you know, interesting talk. Yeah.
Though in letting go and what is teaching it seems simple, but
it's unknown territory for many people.
Unknown territory. It's simple.
Yeah. Yeah.
So what I'm trying to say is you're saying letting go.
OK. Yeah.
So I was just thinking like, say you pick up a subject.
Letting go of anger, for example.
No. OK, so the person has it's not
easy to let go. Of course, the person has been
building up in that anger for some time in the Yeah, and it's
of suffering state. OK, Yeah.
For the first, for the person to want to overcome that, the
person has to make up the mind to I want to try, you know, try
to do it. OK, Yeah, that's the first
stage. The other thing is what do you
think of the aspects of mindfulness, you know, or the
four foundations of mindfulness understanding?
You know what this say anger and then it's OK.
It's from the thinking mind, you know, or if you think good
things, you feel good, you know, if it's still like revenge or
you think there's anger, you know.
So they must understand how the mind, the system know, how it
works in them is for my mind, you know, and then work from
there, you know, you know not. It takes time, you know, it
takes time and slowly, slowly overcome that, you know, and
overcoming suffering too. It's an unknown territory, but
not all people can. So what do you think of the
aspect of mind you know, Understanding the mind you know?
Yeah, mindfulness is absolutely essential.
Yeah, because mindfulness is what enables you to see that
there is a problem there in the 1st place.
And you can. And you know the first thing
you're saying, you said about anger becoming very strong and
established. Well, that is part of the
problem. Sometimes if you want to
overcome the anger, you can't wait till it's established.
You have to catch it early on. Once it becomes established,
it's actually very hard to let go of.
Sometimes you just have to walk around the block a few times and
kind of you dissipate that extra energy or something like that.
But so the idea here is to catch it early on, and that is when
you can do something about it. And that's where mindfulness
comes in. And if you are really mindful,
you can see that now the causes are coming together for anger or
ill will to arise. Yeah.
And that's when you have a chance to do something about.
It just quickly, yeah, the reason why I thought, but mine
is for me, you know, whenever like there's a disturbing
feeling or immersion comes with me, the first thing I thought
always my mind affecting that, you know, and I work on their
own, you know, to put all the positive things, you know,
simple things, it can go off weekly.
The problem difficult things take longer this thing, but it
goes off to. But it's the mind over feeling,
yeah. Yeah, OK, good.
OK. Thanks, Eddie.
Yeah. I think you are the most famous
person here. You are one of the people
everyone knows about, Eddie. Before I came here, I thought I
was not going to ask any question.
No, you know, But then with your deep, you know, like the deep
talk, you know. So I say something.
Good. OK, Thanks, Eddie.
Great. So let's let's have a look at
the the few people from overseas or at least outside of the
Buddhist society. We have Ace from the Middle
East. How can you understand a human
with severe depression who has suicidal thought if you are you
or a monk never experienced that level of pain?
Thank you. Well, you, you know, you may not
be able to understand exactly what that person is through.
That is true. You cannot understand exactly,
but you will have some idea. I mean, everyone has had
difficult times in their life. Most people have had periods of
depression. Yeah.
And you can remember those periods.
So you have some idea what is going on.
And sometimes you can just look at someone and you can say, wow,
you have a lot of pain in your life.
You can know that is from the way a person looks sometimes and
you can have compassion through that.
So you don't really need to understand exactly because you
know that all people in the world have plenty of problems,
plenty of pain, and you can have compassion just through a
general understanding of humanity and some similar
experiences as well. And for that reason you have
then the, you know, the ability or the, you know, you can also
help to guide them out of that. OK, Eddie from Indonesia.
Hello Eddie, how are you? OK?
How is sleeping different or the same from meditation as both
seem to have let go, have the let go element.
What, what is the right effort we can do in order to practice
let go, especially on fear. So it's a very good point
because when you let go, two things can happen.
You can go to sleep or, or you can have a good meditation.
It's true, actually. So I, I, you know, it's a good
point that you're making there. And sometimes actually, if you
want to let go in meditation, it can be a bit like falling asleep
because what is it that you do when you fall asleep?
Well, usually you let go. Yeah.
If you have a very active mind that you can't sleep, usually
you have to let go of the thinking.
Yeah. And so it's a similar kind of
thing that you do in meditation as it you do when you fall
asleep. Yeah, letting go of something
that allows you access to that deeper state.
So it's a it's similar. So you have a point.
That is the only difference is that when you fall asleep, fall
asleep, it's because your mind is tired.
You let go and then the tiredness takes over.
But when you let go more voluntarily, you're not tired,
then the clarity of mind takes over instead.
That's the difference. So the difference is just when
you do it, the qualities of the mind behind that.
Yeah. So what is the right effort we
can do to practice let go, especially on fear?
Well, again, on fear. Fear is the fear of the future,
about the being, scared about the future, the future being
uncertain and all of that. So the way to remember is that
you know if you are. A Buddhist.
And I guess you're practising well, Yeah.
Otherwise you wouldn't be here. Yeah.
On Friday, Be here on Friday night with us from all the way
from Indonesia. That's really nice to have
people coming all that way just to be with us here.
And you are doing the right thing.
You're living well. Your future is bright.
Yeah. So the, again, all of these
things about fear of the world and where the world is going,
it's kind of irrelevant. Your future is bright.
If you are living well, that is what matters for your future.
Where the world is going doesn't matter so much.
If we we could get that message out there to the world that
there would be much less anxiety in the world because we know we
have the strength and the power within us to ensure a good
future. We just have to do the right
thing here and then it will happen.
So you just make sure you live well.
And as you do that, as you live well, gradually you will
overcome that fear because you after a while, you know that
you're living well. And also don't buy into those
fantasies about the future. You know, the fear about the
future is very often unrealistic.
You, you will have noticed in your life that you are anxious
about heaps of things that never turn out that way anyway.
It's just the kind of, you know, it's, it's not real that the
anxiety is built on illusions to try to see that actually another
future is more likely. Why be anxious?
Why be fearful? And gradually you overcome that
by thinking in the right way. This is, oh, in Melbourne.
Dear Azan, how do we best let go of others expectations of us?
Thank you. You don't let go of others
expectations. You let go of your trying to
pander to others expectations. That's what you let go of.
Yeah. You don't care about others
expectations. You think whatever, Yes, they're
probably not mine. That's what you think, Yeah.
And then you're on the right track.
Yeah, so just allow other people.
You can't really control them, just have to allow them what
they be. But you don't need to react to
their expectations. Then you're on the right track,
unless it is the expectations of the Buddha.
If it is the expectations of the Buddha, then please don't let go
of that and fulfil it, OK? This is Bryce from Australia.
Hello Bryce. Recently I have abused
psychedelics and reached a state of delusion.
How do I ground myself back in reality?
Stop using psychedelics #1 and just give yourself time.
Yeah, you will probably come out of this.
The fact that you are even here and you are kind of doing, doing
the right thing means you're on the right track.
Yeah, I would say probably you will come back gradually,
gradually, gradually. In the meantime, live really,
really well. Be super duper kind to everyone
around you. Do the right thing.
And these are the states that give rise to clarity after a
while. Do a bit of meditation if you
can. If you find meditation too hard,
at least live really well if you to the very best of your ability
here, Joshua in Brisbane. Hello Azan, I want to start
digging deeper into studying Buddhism.
I'm just wondering where is the best place to start reading the
suit as I'm confused on the order I should read them.
That's a good point that you are confused because there actually
is no order. So you know, might as well be
confused about that and so just read what you enjoy.
That's what I always recommend. But to start out, it is good to
read like an anthology of the certain.
And there is a beautiful book by Venable Bikibode called In the
Buddha's Words, In the Buddha's Words by Biku Bodhi Bodhi
BODHIBODHI. You can look it up online.
You can purchase that book. I think not.
Most of the content is also available online.
If you go to a a web page called central.net, most of that book
is available through that through that web that yeah,
whatever is available there on throughthecentral.net website.
That's right. That's the word.
OK, yeah, must be getting tied now.
So start with that. And also it can be very useful
to have some guidance when you read the suitez.
So we often do SUTA readings here at the BSWA.
Usually every second Sunday of the month we do suta readings
and I would recommend you to follow that I they are usually
quite good. I say in all modesty, but I
think they are reasonably good. Yeah, because we we have studied
the suit as in quite a lot of detail in our tradition, the
Aljambram tradition. So you should be getting good
suit readings. I would say here we translate
sutas here. So we are very involved in suta
study. So you fairly good stuff.
You can also listen to other people's suta readings.
Very good people to listen to our people like Venerable Biku
Bodhi. He is foremost translator of the
Poly language into English in the world.
He's a very, very good one to listen to as well.
So try it out and then see what happens and enjoy, make sure you
enjoy reading the suit as because if you enjoy, you will
carry on. And that's really the the the
way to move forward on the path there.
OK, another question. Really another question.
OK, Yeah, please fire away. I forgot my question.
What I found fascinating was the
last one that you read which spoke about the quenching of the
candle is nirbana. And the way I look at it is a
candle is light and quenching of when you extinguish the light is
what I'm I'm seeing it that way that that that that is darkness
is what is nirbana. But.
No, I think that would. Be equanimity maybe?
Sorry, equanimity. OK, I don't think so.
I think that would be taking it the wrong way here.
First of all, I want to congratulate you on forgetting
your question because that's a really good sign.
I that because you're listening to what's going on, you forget
the question. That's really, really good.
A lot of people, they think about the question while someone
is talking. Yeah, they're not really
listening. Yeah.
So forgetting your question, I think that's a wonderful thing.
And I I you know, I think it's really kind of admirable.
So. But I don't know.
I don't think that is the point. The point is that because
Nirvana is actually light. Yeah.
Very often the suit as awakening is a moment of insight.
Yeah. The light arises, darkness is
dispelled. It's almost the exact opposite
because darkness is the idea of being ignorant, not being able
to see what is going on there, but inside is actually seeing it
is the light going on there? Yeah.
So this is a different metaphor. The metaphor here is not about
the light and darkness. The metaphor here is about the
flame, the flame which is flickering, the flame which is
burning. Flame is like craving, always
restless, always moving on, always going somewhere.
Here It is this kind of the burning inside of us.
Yeah, when the flame goes out, you become cool.
Yeah. This is the idea of the flame
going out. Yeah.
The ending of craving. Yeah.
It can also be understood as the ending of the five aggregates,
the ending of the body or the mind of the arrow hand when they
die. Yeah, they can also be regarded
as that the final flame going out, or everything goes to
cessation and ends. Yeah, things end just like the
flame goes out. It's a metaphor for ending
things coming to an end. Yeah.
OK, everyone, that's it for tonight.
Let's play. Pay homage to the Buddha Dama
Sangha.