Okay everyone, so welcome once again.
The topic for tonight's talk is going to be on the idea of
insight, and specifically about how to give rise, if you like,
to insight or deeper understanding, not just through
meditation practice, but also through daily life experiences.
And so to make it really practical basically, and one of
the kind of beautiful things that comes to mind is one of the
things that Ajahn Shah said. Ajahn Shah of course being Ajahn
Brahm's teacher back in Thailand, by many considered the
greatest meditation master in Thailand of the 20th century.
And that is saying something because Thailand is the country
where there were lots and lots of meditation masters.
He said he was really quite exceptional in many ways.
And what he said, and this is kind of really interesting when
you consider it properly, he says that everything teaches
you. So does everything teach you?
Are you able to use that, all the daily activities, all the
daily happenings, are you able to use that in the pursuit of
insight, to help you to see things more clearly.
And it means that there is almost an endless amount of
possibilities of gaining a greater understanding in life,
just by being aware, just by tuning your mind in the right
way in daily life. That is all you have to do.
And as you do that, you are constantly growing in wisdom if
you do it in the right way. That's extremely important
because one of the problems of the Buddhist path, you often
hear about people who have been practicing for years and
decades, and sometimes they say, oh, I'm not making any progress.
What's happening? Nothing is happening.
Where is that bliss everyone talks about?
Can't see the bliss. Where is that profound peace
that is promised according to the suttas?
Can't see any profound peace. And the problem is often that we
are not really dealing with the things that are really
fundamental to the Buddhist practice.
And of course one of those very foundational things is the idea
of right view. Right view is the foundation of
the Buddhist path. It starts at the beginning of
everything else. And it is the causal condition
that makes the entire Buddhist path work.
Without right view, there is nothing.
And if you are able to use your daily activities, everything
that happens in daily life, all the little things, the meetings
with people, the disappointments, the
happinesses, the neutral things, all the things that happen, and
if you can use that in the service of insight, then you are
really hastening this building up of right view.
Right view is something that takes time to develop.
Right view is not either right or wrong.
Right view is a vast number of different degrees.
And we all come into this world with a large amount of wrong
view. That's why we get reborn as
humans, because we have wrong view.
So we come into this world with distorted ideas about the world,
with distorted perceptions of the world.
Everything is already preconditioned in a very
distorted way. And because it is so distorted,
we come into this world, we don't even know it is distorted.
If I tell you that our perceptions are distorted, you
might shrug your shoulders. You might not know what I am
talking about. And that is kind of the point.
You don't know what we are talking about, because the
distortion is so fundamental, it is very hard to see.
And the only way to rectify that distortion is to follow the
process of development that the Buddha talks about in the
suttas. And gradually, gradually, you
are rightening up this wrong direction of the view, gradually
coming into the right direction, more and more.
I always like to compare this to like a supertanker.
The supertanker is all the habits, all the things from the
past that we carry with us, that drive us in a certain direction
with enormous momentum. And to change the direction of
that supertanker is really difficult.
Have you seen some of those supertankers?
They are like enormous, they are like half a kilometer long, and
they take like 20 kilometers to slow them down, because the
momentum is so enormous. And I think the truth is that
the momentum of our minds is far greater than a supertank.
A supertanker has nothing on our minds.
Our minds are really, these are the real supertankers of the
world. So we need to gradually,
gradually move it around, to this enormous momentum from the
past, and then get it in the right direction.
This is what insight in daily life can do for us.
But before I give some examples of how to do this, I want to
talk about this word called insight.
What does it actually mean? What does it actually refer to?
If we go back to the suttas, the word of the Buddha, what are the
words that the Buddha used? Sometimes when we use an English
word like insight, it can be very hard to grasp what the
Buddha was talking about, because the word insight may not
reflect very well what the Buddha was talking about.
And so the Buddha in the suttas uses two words that are really
kind of fundamental for how he teaches this area of looking at
the world. One is vipassana.
You probably all heard about vipassana, going to vipassana
retreats. Sometimes I get the phone call
at Bodhinyana monastery, I pick up the phone and they ask me the
question, do you give vipassana retreats at Bodhinyana
monastery? I have no idea what to say when
people ask that. I think, what are they talking
about? What is this vipassana?
I'll come back to this later on, because vipassana retreat
doesn't really make any sense when you start to understand the
word behind this. This is kind of radical stuff.
So I'll get back to this later on, I'll warm you up, then I'll
get into the radical stuff, once you're nice and warm and I will
see how it works. So there's two words by the
Buddha, one is vipassana, another one is panya.
And they are not the same. Panya is wisdom.
And you will notice that the idea of wisdom is very closely
related to the idea of insight. Because a person who is wise is
a person who has insight. If you have a moment of insight,
the flash, the bulb goes on, bang, wow, now I see.
That is very close to the idea of wisdom.
Seeing things right like that is actually what drives wisdom.
So insight and wisdom are very close to each other.
It's almost very difficult to get any much daylight between
those two words. They are almost synonymous.
And I remember writing to one of the great translators into
English of the Pali Suttas, and I was complaining to him, why do
we call vipassana insight? It means the same thing as
wisdom. And you know what he said?
He said, you're right, but we're so used to translating in this
way, we can't change it now. That's defeatist attitude,
right? That's kind of what it means,
you can't change. Of course we can't change it.
The point is to give people the right view about what the Sutta
is teaching, isn't it? The point is to present the word
of the Buddha in the right way. The point is not to hold on to
the past because we are used to certain terms of the past.
So anyway, vipassana doesn't actually really mean that.
And this is what is so interesting.
So what does vipassana mean then?
And what vipassana really means is not wisdom as such, because
the point in the Suttas is that vipassana leads to wisdom.
If insight doesn't lead to wisdom, because insight is
wisdom, so what is it that leads to wisdom?
What leads to wisdom is clear seeing.
As you build up clear seeing, you see the world clearly, then
that leads eventually to breakthroughs.
It leads to insight, it leads to wisdom.
And the way that the word vipassana is used in the Suttas,
by in the word of the Buddha, actually clear seeing is far
closer to how this word is used than the idea of insight.
So when I talk about developing vipassana in daily life, that's
what I really want to talk about here.
What I'm talking about is clear seeing.
That clear seeing will gradually, as it builds up over
time, it will lead to insight, it will lead to wisdom, it will
lead to all these wonderful things in the world.
Insight is like a word that is used in Buddhism as a marketing
word, right? Because who doesn't want
insight? Is there anyone here who doesn't
want insight? Okay, the door is over there, if
you don't want insight. Why wouldn't you want insight?
Insight is this very powerful term, that's why it is so
powerful to talk about insight meditation, because insight
means understanding the world, it means seeing things clearly,
it means knowing who you are, it means being able to deal with
your relationships with other people.
Insight is about having an understanding of happiness and
suffering. Insight into life, psychological
insight, is always a very positive term.
It is a bit like the idea of wisdom.
It's very draws in, of course we want insight.
It's kind of, to me anyway, it's a very beautiful word, I think
for most people here probably is.
Just like wisdom is also a very beautiful word.
These are the pinnacle terminology that we use on the
Buddhist path that lead to the very pinnacle of what the
Buddhist path is about. But to get there, we need
vipassana, we need clear seeing. So how can we see more clearly
in daily life? This is what I want to talk
about. Some very simple ideas, and you
will be surprised how simple these ideas are, and you might
start yawning once you start talking about them.
Please don't yawn, listen. This is kind of the fundamental
requirement to be able to get these things.
And one of the reasons why these things are interesting is
because these are the very ideas that the Buddha to be, the
Buddha to be is the, before the Buddha became the Buddha, he was
the Buddha to be. And these are the things that
the Buddha to be made him, renounce the house of life and
become the Buddha. So these are very, very powerful
ideas. And so if you can use these
ideas in the right way, be careful because you might become
the next Buddha. If you don't want to become the
next Buddha, close your ears. These ideas that actually drive
you onto the spiritual path, these are the ideas that become
the very foundation for awakening itself.
Simple things, right? This is kind of the thing about
the Dhamma of the Buddha. It is so simple very often, and
we don't understand the profundity of the simple things
in life. Next time you listen to Ajahn
Brahm tell a story, listen really carefully, because those
stories are far more profound than you might think.
So let me give you an example of the things that the Buddha was
thinking about before his awakening.
And by the way, I should also say that after his awakening,
when he started to teach, he started to teach based on those
same things, and then talk about some of those things that he,
both before his awakening and also that he taught afterwards.
And one of the things the Buddha said is that these are things
that are expected by everyone, whether you are a lay person or
a monastic, whether you are a woman or a man, doesn't make any
difference. This is for everyone.
That's kind of nice to know already.
So one of those things are, very simple one, old age.
Contemplating old age. This is one of the things,
there's a number of things that made the Buddha decide to become
a monk. Remember the Buddha was 29 years
old when he became a monk, right?
He was already contemplating old age.
So if you think that you are too young to contemplate old age,
the answer is no. You're probably too old already,
so get going. Now is the time.
Don't hold back. Because the earlier these things
become clear to you, that if you are young, well, the opposite
side of the coin is old age. Youth and old age always have to
go together. There's not much choice in the
matter. The alternative to getting old
is actually much worse. Not getting old means you know
what that means. So it's never too early to
contemplate the idea of old age. So what does it mean to
contemplate old age? It can mean a number of things.
But one of the things that it means, and this is kind of a
thing that happens to everyone at a certain point in life, one
day you look at yourself in the mirror, and you see the signs of
old age are coming. You see the first gray hair, you
see the first wrinkles in your skin, you see your muscles
starting to waste a little bit because you're getting older.
You see things kind of deteriorating.
Your eyesight is getting worse. Well, actually, that's bad
because that means you can't see it so clearly in the mirror
anymore. That's a bad idea.
Put your glasses on. Put your glasses on so you can
actually at least see what's going on in the mirror.
I'm not going to go there. So these are the things that you
see in the mirror. And actually, there's a very
nice story that I should tell at this particular point.
And this is one of the great stories from the suit.
This is the story of the king who lived a long, long time ago,
a time when the lifespan was really, really long.
And this king, he said to his barber, he said that, when you
see the first gray hair on my head, I want you to pluck it out
and show it to me. And so after many thousands of
years, the lifespan was very long in those days.
After many thousands of years, the barber saw a gray hair on
the king's head. So he plucks it out.
The other king said pluck it out.
He plucks it out and shows it to the king.
And the king says, well, that's a deva duta.
It's a divine messenger. The gray hair is a divine
messenger. A messenger from the gods.
And the divine messenger tells you, now is the time to
renounce. Now is the time to give up the
kingdom and to become an ascetic instead.
That's kind of inspiring. You have a king, and the king,
even the king decides to kind of give up the life of a king and
become an ascetic in his place. That's really kind of awesome.
So what do you do when you see the sign of old age?
When you look yourself in the mirror.
I'm sure this will happen to all of you, right?
Every one of us here, maybe except if you're very, very
young, you see the first sign of what you do.
And for the vast majority of people, what you do is that the
first thing you say is like, oh no.
It's like a denial of what is going on, right?
You don't want to see that. The gray hair, the wrinkles, all
of these things are negative things in most human experience.
You don't want to see those things.
And you deny it, and you kind of become upset, and you kind of
realize that the youthfulness that you've had is impermanent.
And even though, in a sense, you knew that already in a certain
way, even though we know, we don't really know it deeply
enough. And that is why you are upset.
The very fact that you are in denial about that reality means
that you haven't really understood the idea of old age.
You haven't really penetrated what the Buddha saw, because you
actually rejected straight away. So this is the first problem,
right? There's no insight there.
There's no clear seeing about what is going on.
There is a denial about reality. What is the second thing that
happens after that? The second thing that happens
after the denial is, how can I fix it?
Right? Okay, hair color, botox.
If you get really desperate, plastic surgery, right?
Certainly makeup, absolutely makeup, yeah?
Maybe take off your glasses so you don't have to see it
anymore. Whatever, so you don't have to
see it, right? So the second thing that comes
to us is the idea, I want to fix this.
And that is really problematic, because the moment you come with
the idea that you want to fix these things, at that moment you
feel that it is in your power to overcome the problem.
That is what you feel at that particular point.
And the moment you feel that the problems of life, the reality of
life, is within your power to deal with, at that moment you're
buying very deeply into delusion right there.
The delusion that the world can be sorted out.
The delusion that it's possible that all the sufferings in life,
all the problems in life, it's in your power to deal with them
in a certain way. And this is this feeling that we
have inside of us, that we are powerful, that we have a degree
of power over the world, that we can actually fix things up.
But remember that ability to sort things out in life, to deal
with things and fix things up, this of course is an illusion.
All you're doing is putting off the inevitable.
Because all the age, even though you may be able to cover it up
on the surface, under the surface it is still happening.
And you have wasted an opportunity to see more deeply
into the nature of who you are as a human being.
So what should we do instead? Instead of making yourself think
that you can deal with these things, instead of denying the
reality, what you should do instead at that moment?
Okay, so maybe you deny it for a short second, but because you've
been coming to Dhammaloka, you think, okay, wait a minute,
there is an alternative way here.
And the alternative way is to say, stop, let me take this in,
let me feel what it feels like, when I see myself getting older,
when I see the grey hairs coming out, the wrinkles coming, the
things becoming a bit more saggy, all over the body, all of
these kinds of things. This is the nature of these
bodies of ours. And when you see that happening,
stop, take it in. What does it feel like?
And that is where the transformation happens.
And if you take it on board, what is going on, that is where
the transformation happens. What happens at that point is
that the mind starts to feel more clear.
What happens at that point is that as if you are giving up a
kind of intoxication. One of the marvellous things
about the Buddha, there is a large number of intoxications
talked about in the suttas. Of course there is the
intoxication of alcohol and drugs, as an obvious one, but
there is much more than that. We tend to be generally
intoxicated as human beings, precisely because we have a
wrong view. At this point you are
establishing the opposite view. You are establishing right view,
seeing things clearly, accepting what is going on.
And because of that, the intoxication is going down.
You can feel your mind becoming more clear at that particular
point. Wow, I see a reality here.
What does it mean that your intoxication is going down?
It means that you are actually losing some interest in that
body. You start to understand its
nature. It is not as interesting as I
thought it would be. This body has some very inherent
problems to it. You always have those problems
and you can't really escape them by just kind of touching up
things with Botox or whatever. It's not going to work.
Botox is eventually going to, your face is going to look so
stiff anyway, it doesn't really look very nice anymore.
If there are any monks who ever use Botox, that would be
interesting. Maybe some superstar monk who
has to look just right or something like that, I don't
know. I hope not, but you never know.
That's kind of beside the point. So it clears the mind.
You see more clearly and you can feel at that particular point
that you start to understand why this kind of clear seeing, why
this kind of simple Vipassana is actually very powerful in
steering you in the right direction.
The body becomes less interesting.
When the body is less interesting, the entire world of
the five senses starts to become less interesting.
What it does, it moves you, it drives you onto the spiritual
path because you understand that there are other qualities, the
qualities of the heart, the qualities of the mind, the
purification within. That is what really matters
because these are things that do not age.
They are not subject to these things.
These are things you can take with you into the future, into
the long term future. That is precisely why they are
powerful. There is no sell-by date for
kindness, only a sell-by date on the body.
Maybe we should have a stamp on babies when they get born, kind
of sell-by date or something like that.
So, this is what happens. It drives you onto the spiritual
path. That is the purpose of these
kind of reflections. That is why when the Buddha used
the very simple reflection of old age, that is exactly what
happened to him. This is how Buddhism actually
came about. Try this in your own life.
At the right time, the right place, when you are ready for
this sort of thing, and see what it does to your mind.
See if you can eliminate some of those intoxications of the mind
that are usually there. This is only for really serious
Buddhists. If you are not all that serious,
then okay. I would warn you that be careful
with these kind of contemplations because the
reality of course is that there are some people who feel, might
feel depressed, or depressed, or depressed, there are some people
who might feel depressed by seeing this, might feel sad.
If it leads you to feel sad or depressed, then please don't do
it. Only do it if you are ready.
The idea with these things is to give rise to wholesome states,
not negative states. You always have to monitor your
own mind to ensure that actually it gives rise to the right kind
of qualities. Otherwise, it is going to be
counterproductive. So, use these things wisely.
If you don't kind of blindly follow along, be wise about it.
So, this is the first thing that the Buddha talks about, the idea
of old age. Another of the Buddha's
contemplations, before his awakening, that drove him onto
the spiritual path, and also that he recommends all of us to
do, and I am going to do this maybe a little bit more quickly
now, you get the general idea of what is going on, is the idea of
illness, becoming sick. So, how do we react when we
become sick? Well, first of all, we are in
denial, oh no, sick again, something has gone wrong.
Of course, you have forgotten Ajahn Brahm's basic teaching,
when you go to the doctor, as you always say, doctor, doctor,
something is right with me, I am sick again today.
This is a very important, it is such a simple teaching, and it
is kind of funny, but it is true, right?
It is actually very profound. It is this kind of teaching that
the Buddha used for his awakening experience.
So again, you are in denial straight away, something has
gone wrong, nothing has gone wrong.
This is the nature of the body, you got cancer, what do you
expect? Of course, you got cancer.
You probably have cancer now, I probably have cancer right now.
We all know that the cancers are in here, it is just a matter of
whether they multiply fast enough or not.
I have my father died of cancer, my sister died of cancer, it
would be a miracle if I didn't die of cancer, the question is
when? Is it going to be tomorrow, or
the day after? Right?
And once you kind of start to see the world in this way,
actually nothing has gone wrong when you get sick.
First of all again, you are in denial.
Then, once you are in denial, next thing you think, well how
can I fix this problem up? Okay, go to the doctor, get
chemotherapy, get the right medicines, I am going to beat
the cancer, no problem, I have the willpower to beat the
cancer. All of that is illusion.
I have seen so many people saying that, I am going to fight
this cancer to the very end, and of course they always lose,
cancer is always the winner in these kind of battles, it is not
about will, it is about nature, you can't beat nature through
willpower. And again, we buy into this
illusion that somehow, by using willpower, by using our choices,
by choosing things in the right way, by doing things, it is in
my power to overcome these things.
I do not mean that we should just succumb to the cancer
without doing anything, that is not really my point.
Of course we should go to the doctor, but at the same time as
we try to find a solution, we should also realize at the same
time that these things are inevitable, nothing has gone
wrong when you get cancer, when you get a cold, when you get
COVID, whatever it is, it is part and parcel of having this
body. So again, you change your
attitude, you look at yourself in the mirror, you realize this
is illness, this is the nature of this body, it feels terrible,
if the body feels this terrible, this body is far more useless
than I ever thought it would be. Actually, it is far less
interesting, and again you can feel the intoxication with the
body drop. The Buddha specifically talks
about the idea of intoxication with youth, sorry, with health,
youth was the last one, this is health, intoxication with
health. I am healthy, I am strong.
The moment you think like that, you are already intoxicated
without really understanding it. Then coming back to this idea,
suddenly the intoxication is gone, your mind clears of that
intoxication and you can feel that you actually are seeing
things far more straight. You can feel that now the world
is coming into focus, the idea of what matters is coming into
focus in a powerful way. You shift your attention away
from that focus on the body, the five senses, the importance of
this world around us, and it shifts instead to the spiritual
qualities that are far, far more significant, because again, they
not only don't age, but of course they also don't get sick,
they don't get ill. Spiritual qualities are things
you can rely on, they will be there if you develop them in the
right way. This is the idea of illness and
old age. What about the third one?
This is in many ways maybe the most powerful and important one
of all of them. This is the idea of death.
This is the thing that really I think was maybe the most
powerful driver of the Buddha to be on the spiritual path.
I think we can thank the contemplation of death for why
we have Buddhism. Isn't that extraordinary?
We have Buddhism in the world today, maybe I shouldn't say
Buddhism, but the Dharma, the teaching of the Buddha, we have
that Dharma in the world today because of the power of the
contemplation of death. That is how powerful it is,
because this is what drove the Buddha to become a monastic, to
become a monastic and then practice this path all the way
to the very end. How can we bring that into our
lives? There are a number of ways we
can do that, but one of the ways that is very, very simple is
when you read the newspaper, or you watch the news on TV, or you
get them on your Facebook feed, whatever, I don't know anything
about Facebook, but whatever it is, social media, wherever it
is, people die everywhere, whether it is on Facebook or
wherever, so people die, lots of people die every single day.
You can always read about people dying, famous people, non-famous
people, local people, neighbours, family members,
people always dying everywhere. So when you read about someone
dying in the world, what happens to you when you read about that?
Does anything happen at all? I'll tell you what might not
likely happen. Oh yes, so and so died, okay
next page, okay, whatever. That's what happens, right?
It doesn't do anything to you, it's just there, of course
people die, that's to be expected.
I mentioned this here before, but it was a beautiful study
done in South Africa some years ago, and it showed precisely, it
was a research into this idea of dying.
What happens when people read about other people dying?
What happens is that they other the other person, they make them
other, they make them someone who is not really, doesn't have
any relation to you in any way whatsoever.
Oh yeah, it's someone else, they were just stupid, or they were
in the wrong place at the wrong time, I don't do that, I don't
go to the wrong place at the wrong time, so nothing to do
with me, or they just didn't take the medicine or whatever,
right? Or they walked into the traffic
without really reflecting properly.
So we other them, we kind of push them out of our
consciousness, because we essentially, we are not able to
understand that actually that person right there, that could
have been us. We could have been in precisely
that same situation, and of course very often we are, and
very often we end up dying for exactly those kinds of reasons,
we step into the road at the wrong time, you forget to look
left when you should, when you look in the wrong direction,
whatever it is, and then of course you have exactly the same
problem as a consequence. So when you read the paper next
time, when you watch the news next time, and you see that
someone has passed away, remember that is you right
there, there is no difference between you and that other
person, you are susceptible to making exactly the same mistakes
and things, same mistakes, and get things the wrong way around.
We all make that mistake. So instead of thinking that,
okay I am going to prolong my life by exercising properly, by
eating in the right way, by doing some meditation,
meditation is good for life, I am going to make me live longer,
that is the wrong way of thinking, because that again
gives you the idea that you are in charge of your existence,
when actually it is not really like that, we don't know when
death is going to happen. So look at that announcement in
the paper, look at someone in your family circle passing away,
look at someone here in the Buddhist society passing away,
look at sometimes you maybe get close to death because you have
some kind of illness, look at those things, take them on
board, ask yourself, don't be in denial, don't think that you can
escape this, feel what it feels like to be mortal.
And of course the reality is again the delusion, the
illusion, the intoxication of the mind, again recedes as a
consequence, and when that intoxication of the mind
recedes, clarity arises in your mind, you see things clearly,
and it is a beautiful moment when that happens, and you start
to understand the power of a reflection that may seem very
morbid, death reflection sounds morbid, it kind of goes without
saying, it may seem kind of negative or hard, but actually
it is very beautiful because it clears out all the fog of the
mind, the sky becomes clear, you see the stars, you understand
what is going on, now you see life in an entirely new way, and
again it reminds you of what really matters in this life.
Forget about all the nonsense, we spend so much time doing
stupid things in this world, actually instead we could
reflect on those things that matter, it makes you more kind,
more caring as a person, much more interested in spiritual
practice, much more interested in the word of the Buddha,
seeing the Buddha, this great spiritual master who taught us
some extraordinary simple techniques to take us a very
very long way on the spiritual path, your mind, your heart,
your whole body, your whole person inclines towards
spirituality when you see these things more deeply.
It will come and go in waves, some days you see it clearly,
then you forget it again, the fog descends on your mind again,
oh what am I going to do, I am going to enjoy whatever it is,
and then it clears again, it goes up and down in waves like
this, but gradually, it is not just about going in waves, it is
about having a kind of a tendency for those waves, you
never go down as deep as you did last time, you go a little bit
less down, the wave goes a little bit higher, and there is
a trend going upwards, the trend of going upwards is a gradual
deepening of clear seeing, as you do this more and more.
That is the idea of using depth for contemplation, these are
very powerful techniques. Another idea that the Buddha
also uses in the suttas is the idea that everything in the
world, everything that you love and is dear to you must become
otherwise, must become separated from you.
Everyone and everything that you love and is dear to you must
become separated from you, must become otherwise.
It is a simple kind of thing, it is an idea when you walk around
for example, some very simple ideas that when you walk around
your house, and you start to see cracks in your house, what do
you do when you see a crack in your house?
And again the first thing you think is, oh no, it is a new
house, it is not supposed to happen, what happened to the
insurance, let me sort this out, this is wrong, no it is not
wrong, this is the nature of the world, things are impermanent,
things are unreliable, things are cracking, expect lots of
cracks in your life, your whole life is full of cracks, let
alone your house, cracks are everywhere.
When you see that crack, well denial comes, the next thing
comes, how am I going to fix it up and repair it, and again it
gives the illusion of being in power, in charge, that you can
sort out the problems of life. Don't go there, instead again
contemplate what is going on, everything teaches you a simple
thing like a crack in your house, a simple thing like a
burglar burgling your house, what is your first thought, oh
no a burglar, second thought, let me get another lock so I can
really lock it up next time, again it is the illusion coming
in, take that opportunity, it is the nature of houses to be
burgled, it is the nature in Western Australia for houses to
burn down, how despairing it might be, however despairing it
might be, it is still the nature of things, things crack, things
mould, things gradually crumble, in a hundred years time your
house may be nothing but a pile of rubble, right?
These are very useful contemplations, again it shows
you the limitations of the world around us, it drives the mind in
a new direction towards the spiritual practice.
This is all becoming very negative, and I wonder when I
say this, this is why Buddhism gets a really bad rap, right?
Because basically Buddhists are the most negative people in the
world, it is all dukkha and suffering, it is all problems,
so we have to be careful with that, I would like to warn you
by not going too far down that track, so one of the very
important things on the Buddhist path is to balance out the idea
of the perceptions that are hard to take, that are difficult and
challenging, balance those out with perceptions that are
positive, that are delightful, that actually give rise to
happiness as a balancing act, and as you have the happiness as
a balance to seeing all the problems, then you have a
balance in your spiritual practice, and then you will be
fine. So the last contemplation that
the Buddha often talks about is a more positive kind of
contemplation, or it can be used in a more positive kind of way,
actually all of these really have a positive counter-effect
to them, because if you use them rightly, and you see the
intoxication going down, actually it does lead to the
mind being more clear, that is always a beautiful thing, so
please notice that. But the one thing that the
Buddha does talk about, which to me is very interesting, is the
idea of contemplating our kamma, our kamma are our actions, kamma
actually means action. And when we contemplate our
kamma in the right, where the Buddha says we are the owners of
our kamma, so what are we not the owners of?
The things that we are not the owners of are all these other
things that we think that we own in this life, our body, our
reputation, all of these things that are tied to this particular
life, the Buddha calls those things borrowed goods, we have
them for a while, when you die at the very latest, they all
have to go. But the one thing that doesn't
have to go, and this is where the idea of rebirth is so
powerful and so incredibly important in the Buddhist ideas,
because the idea of rebirth allows you to see beyond the
ordinary horizon of things, and it allows you to see what is
really owned by you in the long term, and that is our actions,
the kamma. So how to contemplate that, and
what I would really recommend you to contemplate, very, very
carefully, and this is I think so important to encourage us, to
encourage us to live in the right way.
And it is notice what happens when you do an act of kindness
to somebody else. This is so important, when you
really want to give someone else a gift, when you really want to
say something very kind to somebody, and you really feel
compassion inside of you, and you feel this urge to be kind to
someone else, whatever it is, for goodness sake, if you really
feel that urge to be kind to someone, in whatever way, please
never stop yourself, never be afraid of doing that, take a bit
of risk even if it is required, if you never take any risk in
anything in this life, you're never going to go anywhere, so
take a bit of risk with kindness, especially when you
feel the urge. And when you really come from
your heart in doing an act of kindness, notice what that does
to you, and what you will notice is that that act of kindness is
uplifting, it does something very powerful to your mind, you
feel good about it, and the goodness that you feel when you
do an act of kindness is so different from the goodness that
you might feel by indulging in the worldly things, it is a
peaceful feeling, it is a feeling that you know has a
certain spiritual quality, you know that it will lead you
onwards on the spiritual path, and this is the idea of
understanding the opposite side of the coin, what the spiritual
path is really about. We've just talked about how all
of these worldly things are hollow, there is no essence to
them, there is nothing there that is really interesting in
this body, in these worldly things, because they are so
unreliable, so impermanent, but here you are dealing with
something that has far more solidity to it, even the idea of
kamma at the end of the day is not entirely solid, but it is
far more solid than the things of the world, so notice how it
lifts you up, notice how it makes you happy, when you do
that you will never want to forgo any opportunity to do an
act of kindness, please never forgo that opportunity, look for
opportunities to be kind, any opportunity that you have to say
a kind word, to think a kind thought for goodness sake is
often enough, do an act of generosity, and believe me there
are so many good people in this world who do these kind of
things all the time, become one of them, or become if you are
one of them, become even better, do even more of it, because this
is where you build up your spiritual life, stage by stage,
stone by stone, brick by brick, building it up until the
foundation is so strong, that when you come here on a Friday
night and you listen to Ajahn Brahm's peaceful meditation, you
too will have a beautiful meditation experience, because
all the foundation work has been laid for making that meditation
possible, this is the right view, the vipassana, the clear
seeing of the power of kindness in the world, understanding the
connection between kindness and how you feel about yourself, it
is so important, and as you do that you are balancing out the
negative perceptions with the positive perceptions, actually
they are not really negative at all, it is just that we think
they are negative, actually the perceptions of old age, death
and sickness are actually beautiful perceptions, if you
know what they are, if you know how they work, it is just that
we often perceive them in that way, and so we need to balance
them with something else. So these are some ideas for you,
how to contemplate ordinary life, every moment in life gives
an opportunity to contemplate these things in one way or
another, because there are so many opportunities to live with
kindness, or to remember the downsides of things as well, to
see if you can use this in daily life.
Now, one of the things here, one of the important things about
the idea of clear seeing, is that clear seeing, the ability
to see deeply into things, the depth of the clarity you have,
will actually depend a lot on the peace you have in your mind,
so in ordinary life you will find that sometimes the depth of
understanding, even a simple thing like old age, is not going
to be all that deep, because your mind is busy, you are
thinking about things, and you will kind of want to go on to
the next thing, because you are running around, like we are all
slaves to craving, as it so beautifully says in the suttas,
so because of that it is hard to take this fully on board, so
sometimes reflect on these things when you feel more calm,
come to a nice meditation here at the Maloka Centre, then
reflect on these things, go on a meditation retreat, there will
be more meditation retreats coming up, then reflect on these
things, and then you will see that because your mind is
peaceful, because there are less defilements in your mind,
because you are less distracted, it has the ability to penetrate
deeper within, and you will actually then, then that
contemplation will be more powerful, it will make you even
less intoxicated, even detoxification, this is the real
detoxification, right? We talk about detoxifying the
body, that's just kind of baby stuff, this is the real
detoxification, right? Detoxify yourself from the
illusion of youth and health. This sounds very opposite of
what anyone in the world would ever say, but anyway, that's why
it is kind of nice to say it, this is the real detoxification,
this is the way you really gain that kind of clarity.
So, do some meditation, then these things really start to
sink in, and that is where it becomes even more powerful, and
this gives you an idea of why the idea of meditation and
insight and clear seeing always go together, the more calm, the
more peaceful you are, the more clearly you actually start to
see what is going on, and this goes deeper and deeper and
deeper, two things always conjoined in Buddhism, calm and
clear seeing, samatha and vipassana, they cannot really be
separated, the more you read the word of the Buddha, the more
insight you get into the Buddha's teachings, you start to
see how samatha and vipassana always used together in the
suttas, they are not separate things, there isn't something
called vipassana meditation, there is something called
vipassana meditation, there is no such thing in the suttas,
this is a later invention used for, I don't know exactly why,
but it is used as a kind of marketing technique, or whatever
else, what the reason is, these things always go together,
because when you are calm and peaceful, guaranteed, you will
see things more deeply, so then you go deeper and deeper in your
meditation, and what is it actually that we are seeing all
along, when we are focusing in the deeper meditation, when we
are focusing even on the simple things in daily life, what is it
actually that is going on here, what is this called in the
suttas, all of these kinds of contemplations, now one of the
things that you find in the suttas of the Buddha, the Buddha
often talks about the contemplation of the five
aggregates, the five khandhas, it is a very very common
contemplation, the five aggregates are, it is a very
technical word, aggregate means nothing, this is why Buddhism
doesn't work for many people, because we use the wrong
translations, five aggregates, it is kind of five heaps, the
five heaps of gravel, or something like that, so
aggregate is a factor of your personality, so five personality
factors, five factors of personality is maybe a nice way
of talking about it, the Buddha talks about the contemplation of
the five aggregates, and many people don't really understand
what that means, it is a question I get very often as a
monk, what does it mean to contemplate the five aggregates,
what does it mean to contemplate the five khandhas, yeah,
feelings, form, perception, what exactly, what is all this, and
of course the interesting thing is that the things that I have
been talking about today, the contemplation of old age,
sickness and death, that itself is a contemplation of the five
aggregates, specifically the form aggregate, because this has
to do with form, the physical form of who we are, this is a
contemplation of the perceptions, the perceptions of
what we take ourselves to be, are we the mental content, the
purity of a mind built up through living well and doing
the right thing, or are we this physical body that is so
impermanent, perceptions themselves are contemplated in
this way, the will, what is interesting to us, where we
incline our mind is also contemplated in this way, so
this is what it means to contemplate the five aggregates,
it means simple things like contemplating old age,
contemplating old age, you are contemplating the five
aggregates, of course it is a very fairly superficial way of
contemplating them, but nonetheless that is exactly what
it is, and then as your meditation starts to deepen, you
start to really enjoy the meditation, you start to become
very peaceful, you come out, that is when you can contemplate
these five factors of personality more deeply, not
being satisfied with just contemplating old age, death and
these things, you start to look at the process of meditation,
and the process of meditation has a large amount of data in
it, and you use that data coming through the process of
meditation, seeing the peacefulness of the mind, seeing
the ending of the thinking mind, or at least the calming down of
the thinking mind, seeing the gradual disappearance of the
body, seeing the five senses fading away, seeing the will
becoming more soft, that is why you are becoming more peaceful,
seeing your perceptions change, now you only have the perception
of the breath, everything else is gone, seeing your feelings
changing, your painful feelings, what happened to my painful
feelings, yay, no more painful feelings, this is really then
becomes where the deepening of that insight starts to happen,
but you will notice it is the same kind of insight that we
have from the very fundamental basic things on the path, old
age, death, sickness, everything that is beloved and dear to me
must become otherwise and separated from me, the
contemplation of come, it is the same kind of thing, except that
it goes deeper, but it all starts with those basic things
that we can do in daily life, then when that starts to bite,
when your view becomes more clear, that enables the
meditation to become deeper because of right view, then when
the meditation becomes deeper, you start to understand these
five aspects of personality in a far deeper way as a consequence.
So this is then the idea of how to start developing clear seeing
in ordinary life, eventually leading on and on and on, stage
by stage to more and more profound depths of seeing, until
eventually it leads to the very awakening experiences
themselves. There is a lot more to be said
about this, I barely touched the surface of what counts as
contemplation, what counts as developing our perceptions,
developing right view and all of these kind of things, and I hope
to be able to talk more about this in future talks, because I
think these are some of the most important things that we often
forget about in our practice, the development of our outlook,
looking at the world in the right way, perceiving the world
in a way that is counter to our habits and the usual way of
doing things, getting ourselves aligned with the way the Buddha
saw the world. That is what this path is really
about, and that is what I am hoping to enable you and also
myself and everyone to get closer to her.
Okay, everyone, that is the talk for tonight.
Okay, so let's have some questions and comments from
anyone, so please feel free to ask whatever, there is no limits
here in the Dhammaloka Centre, you are very welcome to ask.
Thanks Ajahn Brahmali. Where are you?
Just here. Okay, great.
This is a question about impermanence, I don't quite get
why it is so important, because in Buddhism, if you think about,
we are always on about impermanence, but if you look at
say an old building, it has been there for a very long time, so
they might be impermanent, but they have been there for an
extremely long time, so in Buddhism is seeing the mind as
impermanent more important, is the natural state of the mind
very impermanent, and the issue is that I am seeing my mind as a
fixed mind, is there a different rate of change between the
Egyptian pyramid and my mind? I would say so, yes.
Well, there are many things to be said about this, but first of
all the mind is probably the most impermanent of all
impermanent things, the mind is just like flashes, you have one
feeling, you have another feeling, you have one desire,
another desire, one perception, it kind of moves so fast, I mean
just right now when I am looking at the crowd, my perception is
changing dramatically, it is like sweeping across everyone,
mind is incredibly impermanent, the Buddha says that if you were
wise, you would take the body as yourself rather than the mind,
because the body at least lasts for a while, whereas the mind is
like moment to moment, it is changing all the time, so that
is true, but the real problem with impermanence is that even
with the external world, forget about the pyramids, because the
pyramids are too far away to really have an impact on us, but
even with the external world, the reality is that we attach to
external things, and the reason we attach to external things is
because our sense of self leeches into the world, the
sense of self does not kind of confine itself to this mind and
this body of ours, or just the mind, it goes into the world to
express itself in the world, so we attach to things, the most
important things we attach to in the world is a partner, right?
Having a nice partner in life is one of the really important
things for the vast majority of human beings, partners are
impermanent, right? You don't know how long they are
going to last, they might die, and if they don't die they might
leave you, or you might leave them, or whatever happens, and
that is the problem with impermanence, that things that
look nice, things that you think you can attach to, will be
ripped from you sooner or later, sometimes there will be like an
amical separation, it will be fine, but a lot of the time
things get taken from you when you are not ready, every
attachment, every kind of indulgence in the sensory world
must end in tears, the end point is always tears, the end point
is always suffering, that is the big problem, so when you come to
the end of your life, or even long before that, you will have
gone through endless heartaches, everyone has been through these
kind of things, when we have been attached to someone and
they have been taken from us, or there have been things that were
very close to us and they get taken from us, it can be
extraordinarily painful, and only people who are not in touch
with their emotions, will not be able to feel that, they are not
in touch with their emotions anyways, they already have a
problem, right? So this is the issue with
external things, and this is the problem with impermanence, even
there already there is enormous amount of suffering in the
world, then comes the mind on top of that, and that is far,
far worse as you rightly point out, because the mind is always
changing, and we take our mental content, we take that as a self,
and of course when that self changes, then it becomes very
problematic, and it leads to again enormous kinds of problems
in the world as a consequence, but even just starting with the
external world is actually a very powerful thing, because
that drives you in the right direction, at least then you can
start developing your mind in the right way, then you have a
foot in the door of the spiritual path, that will take
you in the right direction, and eventually you can start
uncovering also the impermanence and the unreliability of the
mind. Okay, a small nod there, I am
not entirely sure, but come back later on if you like, I am very
happy to come back later on if you wish.
Please. Thank you for the talk.
So very quickly you said an interesting thing, you said
karma is a bit dodgy, no, you said karma is a bit not solid,
that is what you said, so I was thinking about that, is that
because karma is action, and action is a product of the five
heaps, because those are impermanent, therefore, is that
what you meant? What I meant is that once you
make good karma, you are already, you have already heaped
up a lot of happiness for yourself because you are doing
the good things, you get the result of that, but those
results are ultimately limited, they will only last so long, so
even the kama vipaka, vipaka is really what we are talking
about, the result of kama, and those results have a limited
lifespan, but it is far, far, far greater lifespan than what
we experience in this world, the things that only last for this
particular life, so kama may be something, let's say you get
reborn in a deva loka, are you aspiring to get reborn as a
deva? No?
You look a bit, not sure there, okay, but let's say whether you
want to or not, you will get reborn as a deva, right?
Let's say that happens, because you are a good guy, so chances
of you getting reborn in a good place are good, so let's say you
get reborn in a deva loka, and let's say the lifespan is 30
million years, something like that, so you are chilled for 30
million years, that is the power of kama, whereas here you kind
of go on for, what is it, 80 years or whatever, you enjoy
things, 30 million compared to 80, there is a massive
difference there, and that is my point, and it doesn't even stop
at the end of that life, that kama is likely to carry on for a
long time even after that again, so you get reborn as a human,
you still will enjoy those things, but eventually it will
wear out, but what is interesting is that the Buddha
says we are the owners of our kama, so what he is saying there
is, even this is, what I suspect he is saying, he is not saying
this is a final and ultimate kind of ownership, but it is
more of an ownership than what we normally have in the world,
it is closer to ownership. So it is the effect of the kama
that is impermanent, not the idea of the kama, the effect of
the kama. The effect of it is impermanent,
yeah, but it is your job to make sure that the doing of the good
kama is not impermanent, that is your job, yeah, thank you for
that. Thank you Ajahn for drawing a
similarity between a super tanker, kilometer long super
tanker, and your mind takes days or years to turn direction,
yeah, some people probably spend their whole lifetime or maybe
many lifetimes taking the direction.
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. Ajahn, isn't it the principle of
non-self, anatta, that you can't do what you want, you want to do
it, but it doesn't happen because you have no control of
yourself, so is it the non-self aspect of it?
You can't choose your choices, yeah, or something like that.
The thing is that you will do what you are conditioned to do,
so if you are a Buddhist and you get brainwashed by Ajahn Brahm
and told do good things, you will do good things whether you
want to or not, it is kind of irrelevant, it is not about you,
it is about the brainwashing, the brainwashing works.
But for you, for most people it will seem as if I am doing it,
it will feel that way, it feels I am doing good, that is what it
feels like, so that is okay, so you just go with that feeling,
so you do good, go along with that feeling, don't worry too
much about the non-self down the track.
Thank you Ajahn. You are welcome.
Oh, Eddie, there is no night at Dhammaloka without Eddie asking
a question. Okay, maybe over here first of
all. Eddie, you had so many chances,
but Bill, let's go over here first of all, because we have
heard Eddie many, many times, so let's give other people a
chance. Sorry, I don't mean to be rude,
Eddie, just to give a bit of a...
How the monk names are chosen? Aha, how the monk names are
chosen. In most places in the world, the
preceptor, your teacher will choose a name for you and he
will say, you are, so and so. That is what happened when I
became a novice monk. We had a monk from Thailand, in
Thailand they are much more bossy than monks over here, so
he said, your name is Sujato, I said, yes sir, that is all I can
say, I can't really say anything else, so yes sir, okay.
So I became Sujato, but then there was another monk called
Sujato already, you probably know about Sujato, and so I
thought maybe it is not such a good idea, because if there is
another, he is also, well I wasn't Australian at the time,
but he is Australian as well, so kind of...
So next time, Ajahn Brahm was going to be my preceptor for my
higher ordination. Ajahn Brahm has a completely
different philosophy. I said to Ajahn Brahm, well,
maybe I should have a different name, would you give me a name?
No, no, find your own name, that is what he says to me.
So I found my own name, and what is kind of really weird is that
my name, Bra-Mali, has the same meaning as Brahma-Vangso.
The ending Ali and the ending Vangso both mean like lineage,
the line of lineage, so it is a lineage or line of Brahma, that
is what it means. So it has the same meaning, I
didn't know at the time, so that was kind of really, really
strange. So I guess I am in the lineage
of Ajahn Brahm, I don't know. Anyway, hopefully.
Anyone else? Okay, maybe, let's give Eddie a
chance as well. Please keep it short, Eddie.
Ajahn Brahmli, coming back to what you talked about tonight,
on insight, Vipassana, I relate that to insight meditation,
Vipassana meditation, the thinking, in order to get that
clear thinking, so we have to calm ourselves down towards
meditation, so we are calmed down, like say for example, the
pond of water, when it is very clear, then we can see through
things. So we have to calm ourselves
down during the day. Did you see what I mean?
Yes, I know exactly what you mean.
The two sides of the coin, the other one is Samatha meditation,
that leads to Jhana. I was trying to say before that
the suttas don't have this difference between Samatha and
Vipassana meditation, it's not a thing in the suttas, this is
just a modern invention. So there is only one meditation,
that's called meditation, and it leads to two results, Samatha
and Vipassana. That's what I say.
The simile you are talking about is a very nice one, the simile
that is actually found in the suttas, and I really agree with
that one, it's a simile that when you go to a clear mountain
lake, and when you look into a clear mountain lake, because the
water is so pure, you see everything that is in there, you
see the fishes, you see the gravel on the bottom, I don't
know if you have ever been to a mountain lake, that's beautiful,
I've been to many of those, because we have lots of those in
Norway, where I was born, and you see all the things, and in
the same way the mind, as you quite rightly said, the mind
that is truly peaceful, is like a clear mountain lake, you see
through it, it's lucid, and you see what's going on.
Even Ajahn Chah, he says there are two sides to a coin, but
Ajahn Brahm is for his side, you know, it's Jhana.
No, it's the same thing, Jhana is Jnana Dasana, Jhana is called
Jnana Dasana in the suttas, Jnana Dasana is knowledge and
vision, Jhana state is also knowledge and vision.
This is the thing, when Ajahn Chah says there are two sides of
the same coin, it's the same thing, right, it comes together,
you cannot separate them, that's the point of the two sides of
the same coin, it always comes together, they're not separable.
So there is meditation, it has two results, calm and clear
seeing, that's the way it is explained in the suttas, and so
this idea of Vipassana meditation is just a modern idea
that has come about, and it's not necessarily wrong, but it's
more like marketing, than actually having a real
foundation in the suttas. So, the clear seeing, what I
mean is the insight seeing, a lot of weight will be on the
minds, the five aggregates, the main reason, on our self, the
suffering, all these things, the emphasis will be on that, isn't
it? Yeah, come to my retreat in
July, we'll talk about these things in more depth.
Okay, let's have a quick look at the questions from overseas.
So, okay, so we have a question from Germany, Dear Ajahn, does
right view access your subconscious and gives it peace
from negative memories, can right view strengthen my
self-confidence to trust myself in the future?
Does it access your subconscious?
I don't know if there is any subconscious in Buddhism, there
may be things that we are not really fully conscious of, but I
don't think they are actually subconscious from a Buddhist
point of view, but yes, I think right view affects everything in
you, your whole mind and all its various parts, and it
straightens things out, and yes, it will give peace from negative
memories as well, all of those things will get straightened
out, because you will be able to let go more, you will be able to
forgive, all of these things come with right view, everything
good in the world comes from right view, right view is the
foundation for all kinds of happiness, can it strengthen
your self-confidence? Absolutely, because you realize
that actually you don't need self-confidence, it is not about
self-confidence, it is understanding that you are a
human being, if you are a human being, then you just have to
practice in the right way, and the good results will come, and
you will know that in a deep way, and of course you will
trust yourself, because you have an understanding of what is
important in life, you will no longer do those things that are
bad or have negative consequences.
Question from France, this is really cool, question from all
different countries, Dear Ajahn, thank you for your inspirational
words, does insight pop up during meditation, or is it a
process that follows meditation, thus the result of meditation?
It can be both, it can pop up during meditation, depending on
how you do your meditation, but the ideal way for insight to
arise is you come to the end of the meditation, let's say you
are watching the breath, you are becoming quite peaceful, and
then you reflect back on the process, and when you reflect
back on the process, you start to see what actually is
happening, you see things disappearing, you see the
impermanence in real time, because you see it in real time,
you also understand suffering, because the suffering is
understood when it disappears, you start to see non-self, so
very often afterwards is often the best time, or just
afterwards, like when you review your meditation for example,
that sort of thing. Question from Indonesia, why did
you become a monk? That is a long, long answer, I
did actually give a talk on this once, I said I gave a talk on
this, so I never have to talk about it again, so, but there is
a little booklet which is available online, which is
called Why I Am a Buddhist Monk, so read that one, many people
said they liked that booklet, so maybe you will enjoy it too,
look up my name, Bra Mali, why I am, not why I became, but why I
am a Buddhist monk, slightly different, check it out.
Otherwise, no otherwise, ok. Question from Singapore, dear
Ajahn, you mentioned not to contemplate death if it leads to
unwholesome states, can one also be sad as a result of meditation
due to observing suffering, and if so, how can one be more
accepting here? So, don't, if you, yeah, I guess
that very often in life we distract ourselves in ordinary
life, and much of that distraction is actually to
overcome the suffering of life, you eat something, you watch
things, because underlying feeling is discontent,
underlying feeling is not really being satisfied with life, I
think every one of us has been there, distracting yourself from
the suffering of life, so that's true, if that is your standard
thing, then meditation when you see face to face with that
underlying discontent, yeah, it may actually be, make you maybe
a little bit sad, but you need to learn to deal with life, you
need to understand why that discontent is there, why is
there that underlying suffering, and to overcome that underlying
suffering, you just have to practice the foundational
factors of the Noble Eightfold Path, be kind, be moral, be
generous, have kind thoughts towards other people, be
forgiving, do all those right things, and as you do that, the
underlying problems will gradually, gradually, gradually
dissipate, but you have to be very sincere about it, the
sincerity in doing these things, that is what is going to give
results. Another question from Singapore,
Why is the question whether the Buddha appear or reappear after
death is irrelevant? Okay, so this is a completely
different matter that has nothing to do with the talk, but
anyway, so this is a reference to the famous Tetra lemma, as it
is called in Buddhism, and this is the idea, what happens to the
Buddha after the Buddha dies? Does he exist after he dies?
Does he not exist after he dies? Does he both exist and not exist
after he dies? Does he neither exist nor not
exist after he dies? Try to get your head around
those things, it's kind of, oh, it's hard.
So why is this irrelevant? Why is this a problem?
And the answer is that all of these questions, they rely on
one basic premise, one basic foundation, and that is the
premise that there is a self. These questions are, you know,
this is what these questions are about, they are what happens to
the self, what happens to the solid me that is there after I
die, that is what these questions are based on, and that
is why they are irrelevant, because the Buddha says there is
no such self, the self is an illusion, and because of that,
the whole questions actually fall away as a consequence.
Okay, everyone, that is all for tonight, so I wish you all a
marvellous night, a wonderful weekend, and a wonderful time
until I see you next time here at Dhammaloka.
So let's end the day as we usually do, by paying homage to
the Triple Gem. Thank you.