Yeah. Now the the topic for today's
talk is about the benefits and pitfalls of renunciation.
And this was a topic that was suggested to me.
I'm not sure if the person who suggested it is here today, but
never mind. That's how it often goes.
But it's a nice topic, yeah. And it is a focus on, you know,
on things like the monastic life.
The monastic life is often what we think of when we think about
the idea of renunciation. But the monastic life is really
just a particular expression of that pronunciation.
It's an outward or external expression of that.
But of course, the real renunciation is a mental thing
here. It's about giving things up
mentally. And that is what then actually
is the path of practice. And that sometimes is expressed
in monastic life. So I'm going to talk a little
bit about the monastic life. What are the benefits of the
monastic life? I don't know if any of you are
interested in that. Maybe you will be after this
talk. That's kind of the the idea.
See what see what happens. And also some of the dangers,
some of the pitfalls of monastic life because not everyone
thrives in monastic life. And it's important to kind of
try to understand why that might be the case.
And then I'm going to talk a little bit more about the
general idea of what pronunciation actually means.
Now, the first thing I want to just briefly address, and that
is the thing about the word renunciation itself.
I don't know about you, but to me the very word renunciation
sounds a bit forbidding. Yeah.
Renouncing means like foregoing something.
It means like giving up something.
It means like depriving yourself of something, Right.
And sometimes when we hear about the idea of renunciation in
certain traditions or certain religions or certain whatever,
it is almost like like you give things up, but you don't really
expect anything in return. It's the kind of the giving up
for the sake of giving up, maybe because something is considered
bad or whatever it might be. So the word renunciation sounds
a little bit dark and it sounds a little bit like we are not
really, we wonder why we should renounce that.
But in Buddhism, the actually, the word is actually a very
positive word. And the Pali word is the word
nekamatha. And the word near come by quite
literally. It means like non sensual or non
sensory. Non sensory is maybe even better
because it is about the idea that you are kind of letting go
a little bit of the world of the five senses.
That is kind of the point of this.
And of course the Buddhist teaching is such that when we
let go of one thing, especially when we let go a little bit of
the sensory world, there is an alternative that arises in its
place. And that is really the critical
issue. So it's not giving things up for
the sake of giving things up, it's giving things up for the
sake of aspiring to something great, to something larger, a
greater kind of expansion of consciousness or a joy in the
mind or a sense of peace that comes from giving up the
restless search for every more sensory attractive things,
etcetera, etcetera. So the idea of giving up the
sensory world is a very, very positive thing in Buddhism, and
it's conjoined with all of the positive signs lives of
renunciation there. And this has very practical
consequences. One thing that it means is that
we should always, when we do try to renounce things, we should do
all of that renunciation in a very balanced way.
We should not renounce without feeling that we have some return
from that pronunciation. So really the process of
renunciation should be almost like an organic process,
something that grows by itself. Yeah.
Just by practicing these teachings and kind of using
these teachings in the right way.
Yeah. And when it is an organic
process, you will find that you live your life well.
You live with care and kindness. You have a degree of generosity
in life. You enjoy doing service for
other people. You sit down in your meditation
and you start to get some peace. You start to get some joy coming
up in a meditation. And of course, when that joy
comes up, you start to understand that one of the
reason is because you have given up something else.
You gain something in return. And then the idea of renouncing
even more kind of becomes natural, right?
Because it's actually, you understand the joy of
renunciation. Renunciation is great.
It's the best thing that ever happened to you.
The rest of the world things pronunciation is for foolish
people, but you know, it's exactly the opposite.
Renunciation is actually for the people who have some
understanding of spirituality in a deeper sense.
So actually it is a very, very beautiful thing and we should
not be put off by the word renunciation.
It is really just in English that this word can have, can
have, not always, but can have a negative connotation in partly
it just means non sensory or non sensual and it doesn't really
have any negative connotations at all, if anything is positive
now. So what does this mean in, you
know, from a monastic point of view?
Yeah. Why is a monasticism a kind of
renunciation and what are the benefits of that kind of
renunciation? And maybe also what are some of
the pitfalls of the renunciation of becoming a monastic?
Yeah. And of course, when you do
become a monastic, you are giving up quite a lot.
Yeah. And this is precisely the reason
why the monastic life is the ideal way of practicing the
Dhamma. Because when you become a
monastic, when you live this kind of life, you are
approximating to the life of someone who is fully enlightened
or fully awakened. And the monastic life is about
giving up certain worldly pleasures and certain worldly
attachments. And it's quite close to the
ideal of those people who have gone a long, long way on the
path. If you look at someone who is,
you know, a noble person, an area or whatever, someone who
has the full insight into these teachings, they will want to
live as monastics because that is the natural expression of
awakening. Awakening is expressed through
the monastic kind of lifestyle there.
And so you will see in the suit, as in the word of the Buddha,
the Buddha says that if you actually do achieve awakening,
you can no longer live as a layperson.
Yeah. And the reason is because you
don't attach to kind of houses and storing up things and having
a larger full of food and these kind of things, you don't work
like that anymore. So the moment you become
awakened, at that moment you also become a monastic in your
heart at the very least. So this is expressed through
them. And This is why one of the very
important reasons why the monastic life is so powerful,
because it approximate, approximates this ideal of what
it means to be awakened. In a sense, you are trying to
live that life directly and you know, thereby renounce more
things and thereby having success on this path.
But there's much more to the idea of monasticism.
Yeah, this is kind of the kind of broad outline of why it works
so well. But I want to talk about some of
the simple things that make monastic life very attractive.
And one of the most important things that makes monastic life
attractive is all the kalyanamitas you have, all the
good friends, all the spiritual companions that you have on the
path here at Bodiniana Monastery.
We have about, we have over 30 months now 30 monks, right is
really large monastery and not so far just on the other side of
Perth. We have the nuns monastery with
about 15 nuns, so 15 nuns, 30 / 30 monks.
We have a couple of small monasteries as well kind of in
the area with with two or three monks here and there.
So it's very kind of, it's a very large kind of community.
And of course, all of these monks, all of these nuns are
heading in the same direction. So you have all these calamitas.
Yeah. And when you meet with each
other, you tend to talk about the dumma.
They can you, when you see them, you know, wow, it kind of
reminds you of Buddhism. When you see another monastic,
right? You see the robe, you see the
shaped head. You think, oh, I'm one of these
two, OK, I better do the right thing or whatever.
It kind of reminds you of these things all the time.
So it means that you are leaning towards the dumma so much more
easily because you have this calamitas, but more important
than just having kind of a variety of kalyanamitas who are
on various stages of the path. If you end up in a really good
monastery here, you end up with teachers who exemplify the
Dharma, who exemplify what it means to be a monastic.
Yeah, and I feel incredible, incredibly fortunate to have a
teacher like Ajam Brahm. Yeah, You all know Ajam Brahm.
And I was always inspired by Ajam Brahm from the very
beginning, because when I saw Ajam Brahm, I saw someone who
was a real, who was a Buddhist in the full sentence, someone
who exemplified the practice, someone who was living the
teaching is a living example of what the teaching looks like
from outside when it has been internalized fully.
That's what it looked like to me when I met Ajam Brahm.
And it is this beautiful feeling when you are around a person
like that. It's a beautiful and wonderful
thing here. And Adam Brahma often says that
most of the dumb are happens by Osmo Scissor.
Yeah. And this is true.
So when you sit together with someone who is very peaceful,
someone who has a lot of kindness, someone who has this
vibe, the juju. Yeah, The juju is the modern
word for vibe apparently has this vibe about them that they
kind of feel kind of the dumb in their presence.
And this is a very, very beautiful.
And you can just sometimes you just sit there and you feel
peaceful there. You sit there and your mind
turns from worldly things to Dumber things just by being in
the presence of a person like that.
And this is one of the very powerful things about being a
monastic, which actually is much, much more difficult to get
in lay life. In fact, in lay life it is.
You can get it sometimes, but it is very much, much more harder.
And I do not wish to kind of say anything bad about the lay
people. There are some very impressive
lay people in the world, but lay life is much more busy, but many
more things going on there. And for that reason it is much
more difficult to get access to these kind of things.
So the idea of Kalyanamita is an incredibly good reason to become
a monastic. Yeah, if you ever if there, if
you, if there's no other reason, that is plenty good enough to
enter the monastic life. Because the whole Buddhist path
starts with right view. It starts with having having a
degree of faith in these teachings.
And of course that comes from these people who are your
kalyanamitais, these people who are the areas, the normal ones,
It arises from them. And so that contact with that
sort of people is incredibly important for that reason.
So this is one of the beautiful things about the monastic life.
Another kind of very powerful thing about the monastic life is
that the the circumstances that you are in as a monastic, if you
are in a good monastery here, are very conducive to the
practice. In Bodhinana monastery, every
monk has a little Hut in the forest and when I sit in my Hut
I don't see anyone else. All I see is Kangaroos and
birds, kookaburras, the Australian laughing bird, and I
see the grass and the trees and I have a beautiful view in my
from my QT. I even have this enormous view.
You would be surprised that people to pay millions to get
these kind of views that I have on my QT and I just happen to
have it. Why?
Because I'm monk. Benefits of being a monk, Hidden
benefits, But the main purpose is that you are secluded and you
are away from the world, kind of.
You have animals around you, you have nature around it.
All of these things are a great aid to calming down and to be
peaceful there. You come out of the city, you
come out of the towns, you come out of all the sensory realm,
and you kind of sit in your little cutie away in the forest.
And it's a very, very beautiful thing to have that ability.
So what is also very powerful about that thing is that while
you sit in your cutie and you meditate away happily, the meal
comes in cars. Yeah, from the city, The people
drive all around out of body down a monastery here.
And then when I come out of my cutie, all that food is kind of
offered to the monks. And then we get this beautiful
meal every day, 365 days of the year.
That is such a not only is it kind of wonderful to have that
kind of support, but it's actually very inspiring to see
how the Buddhist community works together here.
The idea of sitting in your curity, people bringing all of
these things for the monastics, It's very heartwarming.
And it's very inspiring to see the kindness, the generosity,
the service of the entire Buddhist community looking after
you in this way. And you cannot avoid, you have
to feel a sense of gratitude for these people because it is so
beautiful there. And of course, then you also
want to do something in return. You want to provide a service in
return. That, of course, is the idea of
teaching the Dhamma to the world when you do this.
So it's a kind of, it's a lifestyle that brings out the
best in people there. You know, when I am with lay
people, I always feel that lay people are incredibly kind to
me, incredibly respectful and all of these kind of things.
You know, it's very different in lay life.
People are not going to be always so kind to you as they
are in monastic life. And it's a wonderful benefit to
have this affection and kindness from people around you all the
way around the world. Whenever I travel anywhere,
whether it's to the UK or to anywhere in Asia or anywhere in
Europe or North America or whatever it is, it is always the
same. People are very, very kind, and
they treat you with a lot of generosity and service and these
kind of things. And it's a beautiful way of
seeing the best in humanity. There is a lot of beauty in
human beings. You know, sometimes we just see
the negative thing. There's a lot of good qualities
in human beings around the world there.
And it's wonderful to be able to kind of tap into that and see
that this is one of the wonderful things you see as a
monastic. Yeah.
So these are some of the things about being a monastery that
makes monastic life incredibly powerful and very, very
different in many ways from late life.
And anyone who has a little bit of inclination to monastic life,
I would really recommend you to try it out.
Go to a good monastery. Yeah.
Go to a place where you feel inspired by the teachings,
inspired by the people. Stay there for a while, feel the
atmosphere. Yeah.
Try to figure out maybe this is something for you.
Why? Because if you don't try it out,
you may be wasting a massive opportunity to make incredibly
fast progress on the spiritual path.
Don't waste that opportunity. This is the life.
Yeah. This is the only life you've
got. Maybe you have more lives in the
future, but basically you don't know what's going to happen.
Yeah. Now is the opportunity.
So now take this opportunity and make the most of it.
But so I really recommend the monastic life at least, but you
have to be careful as well because sometimes people are too
idealistic or that go about it the wrong way.
So how should one go about the monastic life?
What are the pitchfalls? What are the dangers in doing
this? And one of the dangers is that
you don't you follow your intellect rather follow your
heart. Follow your heart when it when
it comes to monastic life, it is very important that when you
come to a monastery that you feel right.
It feels right to you. It feels good.
You feel at ease. You feel the sense that there is
harmony. There is a place where you can
feel happy. It's a place where you can
easily meditate for yourself. You feel that people are kind
and caring in the right way. This is so important because if
you don't feel at ease in a place, if you don't really
relax, if you don't feel that people are your friends, it's
going to be very, very hard to practice is the path.
If you feel uptight or you feel people are a bit harsh or maybe
they can even be abusive, it very happens in monasticism as
well, that there is abuse going on.
It happens everywhere because monasticism is just a reflection
of the broader society. So if you have that in society,
you're gonna have it in monasteries as well.
So be very careful. Follow your heart.
If a place feels right, if the teachings feel right, if the
teachings are caught with the suitors, you feel good in that
place. That is probably the place where
you should go. And too often people follow the
intellect there. They have this idea, yeah, if I
go to this monastery, I want them to practice these
particular rules there. They have to practice really,
really kind of strict rules. And I want to see some serious
aesthetic practices. And I wanted people to be told
off when I do bad things and these kind of things.
If you come from your intellect and you have very kind of
stringent ideas of what a monastery should be like, but
you don't follow your heart, very likely you will actually
end up being disappointed. In reality, there's going to be
a little bit of intellect, a little bit of heart, but make
sure that you enjoy the place. Otherwise I can almost guarantee
that your monastic life is going to fail her.
This is the first thing. The second thing that is really
matter is for monasticism to work.
Ideally you have some good meditation before you enter the
monastic life. It is not absolutely required.
The most important thing is to have faith, have confidence in
the Buddhist teachings. And if you have that faith and
you have that confidence, then the meditation will happen down
the road anyway. So you'll be fine there.
So it's going to, it's going to work out one way or another.
You don't have to be too concerned there, but it is
important when you come to monastic life that you don't
suppress things. Yeah, sometimes people suppress
things in the character. You may suppress desires, you
may suppress ill will, you may suppress character traits that
you feel not appropriate in the monastic setting.
And that is really the worst thing that you can do, because
if you suppress things, really it will come back and bite you
at some stage later on. And very often, that very
suppression means that you're not able to make progress on the
the path. So suppressing things is always
a bad idea. So it's important to be in a
monastery where you can be yourself, you can be at ease.
Yes, there should be a degree of restraint, but there should not
be suppression there. And I've seen this happening
with very many monastics. They go into a very kind of
tough environment, and they suppress things in their
character. And after five years, 10 years
or whatever, things kind of erupt.
Yeah. And when they erupt in no long
time, they kind of destroy when they're out.
Or the monastic life, this is sometimes called spiritual
bypassing, yeah, where you bypass real issues in your life
that actually need to be dealt with, maybe psychological or
science of your personality that you haven't really dealt with
properly. And maybe you become a monastic
precisely because you don't like that side of yourself or
something. And then you end up actually
causing problems and calling trouble for yourself because you
do that. So these are some of the
pitfalls. So one of the kind of very
important ways of avoiding these particular pitfalls is actually
when you enter the monastic life, and this is also true for
lay life in a sense, is to ensure that you are making
progress in your practice. And this is one of those
beautiful sayings about the Buddha which always kind of
inspired me here. Very often we tend to be a bit.
I like spiritually materialistic.
Yeah, we have this idea that we want to attain certain stages or
certain states of meditation. Have you got a JAMA yet or are
you what is happening in your meditation and these kind of
things? But this is not really what the
path is about, because you can have an attainment, you can have
a stage, but very often if you get that attainment, then it may
stagnate afterwards. Yeah.
And if it stagnates afterwards, what's the point of that
attainment? So the Buddha says that it is
not the attainment in itself. The attainments are of course
important. It's in a certain way.
But what is the most important thing is that you are making
progress. That is what really matters.
And so when you enter in monastic life, one of the kind
of great pitfalls is that somehow you lose sight of this
idea of making progress or you get trapped into kind of
various, you know, projects or various kind of things.
And the moment not making progress on the path, that is
when the path becomes meaningless.
As long as you're making progress, there's the feeling
that you are going somewhere. There's a feeling that you have
a purpose. There's a feeling that the path
is working for you. And that is so incredibly
important. And if you do that, then you,
you have a sense that monastic life is worthwhile.
The moment you stop making progress, even if you have a
Jana state, even if you have some very profound meditation,
chances are that eventually you will disrobe because the whole
path becomes meaningless as a consequence.
So focus on progress in your meditation, focus on overall
progress on the path. Are you becoming more mindful
there? Are you becoming more gentle?
Are you becoming a more caring and compassionate person in the
world there? Do you feel that your samadhi is
coming together? Is your ill will going down?
Are they kind of excessive grades?
Are they going down there? And if you see this kind of
progress in your life, then you are on the right track.
Especially if you are a monastic, this is incredibly
important that otherwise the monastic life is completely
meaningless. So this is the the idea of
monasticism and why it is so important.
And as I said initially, monasticism reflects the highest
ideal of what the Buddhist path is about.
The highest ideals of the Buddhist path are about giving
up, letting go. And this is what you are
reflecting by living the monastic life.
Ideally, when the monastic life is well lived, it is not always
well lived, but when it is well lived, that is what it does.
But as I said initially, of course what we are really doing
is that we are actually when we are renouncing, it is actually a
change in mentality that really what renouncing really is about.
And one of the kind of initial phases of the idea of
renunciation is the idea of living a moral life, living a
life of service, living a life of generosity.
And I would really recommend you, if there's one thing I
would recommend you that is going to be incredibly
supportive for your entire spiritual life, career, if like
call it a career, it's the only career worth happening is a
spiritual life, right? So forget about all other
careers, just move on to the spiritual life straight away.
So if you're going to have success in a spiritual career,
the one thing that I would really recommended to do, try to
live a life of service. If you can live a life of
service where you always try to implement the ideas of morality,
of kindness, of care, of compassion or understanding in
everything you do, man, you're going to have an incredibly
successful spiritual life there. Now, when I say service, I mean
this in a very broad kind of sense.
Yeah, I mean this in a sense of looking after the physical needs
of other people, also yourself, of course.
Yeah, doing this based on compassion, based on
understanding. I mean, using your speech as a
gift to other people with a sense that you want to offer
them something beautiful through the way you speak and the way
you are. Yeah, this is kind of a life of
service when you offer your speech to other people or simply
by being generous and kind in your daily life.
Yeah, and kind of always being open to help, always being able
to serve in whatever way you can.
And when that attitude starts to go, it's established in you, the
attitude of service. It's a very, very beautiful and
powerful mind state. That mind state of serving
actually gives rise to so much joy and happiness within you.
The person who gains the most from the service is is not
always the recipient. Very often it is actually the
service provided themselves. It's a very beautiful and
spiritual kind of mind state. And one of the things that
always struck me in the suit as the word of the Buddha that I
thought was very interesting was that some of the word that I
used in the suit is for generosity are also the words
that I used for enlightenment, for awakening itself, similar
kind of vocabulary. And I always thought this is so
fascinating. How can the simple act of being
generous? How can the simple act of caring
for someone else, giving something of your own, how can
that be akin to awakening? Awakening is kind of the end of
the path. Generosity is often considered
the beginning. Of course, it's the beginning
only in the sense that you start out being generous at the
beginning, but actually generosity goes with you all the
way to the end of the path. But the idea is that when you
are generous, you are letting go of something.
Yeah, you are renouncing something.
You're giving something which belongs to you, which is part of
yourself, part of your identity, part of what you take to be
mine. And of course, when you are
giving up something which is part of your identity, that
identity of course, from a Buddhist point of view, is an
illusion anyway. It's not really losing anything.
All you do is gaining something. But when you are doing that,
that is a kin to awakening, because awakening itself is also
giving up your sense, your full sense of identity that you have
within there. So generosity is like leaning in
the same direction, being kind, living a life of service is
leaning in that same direction, leaning in the direction of
awakening. So this in itself is an aspect
of this whole idea of Nekama, of giving up, yeah, of letting go,
of renunciation itself. It happens in this way, starting
with such simple ways on the path and then after this very
simple start of the idea of renunciation, that comes the
renunciation in meditation practice.
If you want to have real success in your meditation practice, you
are going to have to let go a little bit of your attachment to
the sensory world. You will start to understand
that once you meditate, once you get a little bit of insight into
how the process of meditation works, it won't be long before
you start to understand that there is a hindrance there.
There is a problem that if you hold on to the five sense world,
meditation will be blocked to a certain degree here because the
five sense world is always about the world out there, whereas
meditation is about going within there.
And if you are attached to the idea of going out into the
world, there is no way you will be able to stay within there.
So there is a natural opposition between the five sense world on
the one hand and meditation on the other hand.
And you start to see this in your meditation.
You start to see that the more you let go of the five sense
world, the more peaceful you become because that world is so
agitated, that world is so restless, that world is always
moving around, going from one thing to something else.
But the world of meditation is the exact opposite.
And you start to see this opposition between the two and
you start to want to renounce the world of the five senses.
You become less interested in it naturally then, but even though
you do become more interested in it naturally, sometimes we can
help the process a little bit. Yeah, we can kind of add a
little bit to the process. And one of the things that we
can do is do some of these beautiful contemplations that
the Buddha talks about in the suitors that shows us the
disadvantages of the five sense world there.
And I love to talk about this. It's one of my favorite topics
because it is so beautiful when you start to understand what is
going on there. Just to give you a very, very
quick reminder of some of these ideas, one of the ideas is the
idea that the five sense world is like you are a dog with a
bone. Yeah.
When the dog eats the bone, it never gets any satisfaction.
All it does is kind of get the taste of blood on the bone, but
there is no satisfaction there. And the five sense world is like
a dog with a bone. There's no real satisfaction.
Where do you find the satisfaction in meditation
practice? In renunciation?
Isn't that the great paradox you find satisfaction in in
renunciation? It's kind of weird.
It sounds like the opposite of satisfaction, but no, it
actually is about satisfaction itself.
And then there are other similes about the idea of the borrowed
goods. Yeah, the five cents world, we
only have it for so long, then we have to give it up.
The simile of the dream, it's like a dream world.
We're always thinking about what we want to get out of this $0.05
world, but it never delivers on this promises.
Yeah, etcetera, etcetera. There are a number of other
similes as well, and I would really recommend you to look
into those. So this is how renunciation
work. Renunciation is beautiful
because renunciation gives you access to something very, very
interesting, very profound and very meaningful in life.
This particular mean that you get through meditation practice
and this is where you start to feel that life has a real
purpose, has a real aim. It's not just about going around
in circles, never going anywhere.
And the final act of renunciation there is the act
where we let go of the sense of self.
Now the sense of self is this very thing that is so dear to
us. It's the ego, it's how we relate
to the world around us. It's a feeling of something
very, very close to us. And it's very difficult for us
to understand that this is actually a problem.
This causes so much suffering in the world.
The sense of self, we have some idea because we can see how the
sense of self of leads to arguments.
It leads to opposition between people because we, you know, we
are, we cannot let go of our ideas or whatever it might be,
but it's difficult to let go of that.
But the final act, which comes at the very, very end of the
path after you renounce the interest in the five sense
world, when they get into some very, very deep meditation
states, you come out of those meditation States and you
realize that the emptiness of all phenomena, the idea that
everything is just constructed in the world is made-up.
Nothing is really lasting. Everything comes from cause and
conditions. When you get that insight into
the natural reality here and you're able to see that the
sense of self itself is a construct.
It is not a reality here at that moment.
That is when you do the final and the biggest renunciation of
all that. And what is the result of that
renunciation? The greatest bliss that you
ever, ever had in your entire life, A massive bliss that lasts
maybe for days afterwards because it is so powerful.
And that is the renunciation of giving up the sense of self at
the very, very end of the Buddhist path there.
And this is what you have ahead ahead of you there.
This is where this path is going here.
And it really is just a matter of implementing these ideas.
And as you can see, the idea of renunciation from the Buddhist
point of view is incredibly beautiful there.
And you just start to take the baby steps, starting out with
living a life of service, of kindness and all of these kind
of things. Then you get into the
meditation, you renounce more of the world.
And finally you get the wisdom, the insider, which is the final
act of renunciation. And that is where the path comes
all the way to the end. And you will be a very, very
happy person or maybe non person after that.
So there you are. So I have used up a little bit
more than my half hour of talking.
So please, if you wish to ask any questions, you want to make
any comments, you're very, very welcome to do so.
So please fire away as I say them.
Who's going to be the first one? Who's going to be the brave
person starting out? I've unmuted.
You. Hello, Adrian.
Hi. I have a question about the
Yeah, well, I'm married, but it doesn't matter.
I have a question about the intermediate states between the
one death and the next rebirth. Is it the same thing as ghost
realm and you have like I put it in simple words, you have like
people annoying you and people being nice to you, like
interactions between things of human beings having effect on
the extreme of contest? Or is it like dreams and
nightmares just protection things?
I hope my questions here. Yeah, OK.
I, I, it's a little bit hard to hear you, but I, I will try to
answer. And if you, if I don't answer,
you can always come back if you'd like.
So the, the intermediate state is, is, I think it is similar to
maybe what you read about in near death experiences.
Yeah. The the Buddha doesn't really
explain in detail exactly how they how they are or how it
works. And I think it will vary
enormously how long they last. Yeah, they can last for a very
short time. Sometimes you can be reborn
straight away. At other times it will take a
bit of time. It's as if your comma has to
ripen. Maybe you have to review your
life and judge yourself or something like that.
And then because of that judgement, then maybe the comma
will ripen as a consequence. But it is probably, in some
ways, it is probably a bit like a it's like a disembodied
experience. Yeah, you so a bit like a ghost
in in some ways. But it's not the same as the
ghost realm because the ghost realm is a realm of suffering,
right? If you get reborn in the PETA
Loca, which is 1 particular kind of realm of rebirth, it is a
realm of suffering. But the intermediate existence
is not a realm of suffering. This is a realm where you're
waiting for kind of the the karma to ripen for you to judge
yourself or, or whatever it is that it takes you on to the
future life. So can you meet beings there?
I think you you can. That's kind of what I understand
that you can actually meet beings there.
And so you know, when you, it's actually very useful, I find, to
read some of these stories about people who have near death
experiences. It's actually very powerful.
Have you read some of those stories?
It's just really interesting and I would really recommend people
to get hold of some of these books.
The most the recent book that I'm aware of is a book called
After, which was published about a year ago or so.
And it's just extraordinary. I mean, you, you become Privy to
some very, very private aspects of people's lives.
And these people were changed by having these kind of
experiences. And we too actually get changed
a little bit just by reading about this experience.
You don't actually have to have them.
You don't have you don't have to almost die.
You can read about some of these experiences and you will
actually be, you know, you will have some of all the feelings
that they had. These are very, very powerful
and beautiful and interesting experiences.
And basically what they are about, yeah.
They are about this process in between whereby you have the
ripening of the karma. So it is like a ghost realm in
the sense that you are more like a spirit.
Yeah, but it's not, it's not negative, It's not a painful
thing. Yeah.
And you can meet, it seems there you can't even meet other people
that passed away and all kind of things.
But generally speaking, it is a +1, especially if you have been
a good person, if you have lived a good life, you've been a good
Buddhist, done the right things, then usually this experience is
going to be very, it's going to be a pleasant one for you.
Are you OK with that? I will unmute Margu and if
Marian has another question, you can come back.
Mary. Hi Ajam Ramali.
Hi. Thank you, Neil.
Wonderful talk. My question is on suppression
and restraints. You mentioned suppression, we
should not suppress our negative traits but rather restrain them.
So could clarify the difference? I have some idea, but if you
could clarify how what's the difference between the two and
to go about them? Yeah, that's a very, I think
very important question because I think what happens is that a
lot of people, they know how to suppress.
They don't know. They don't know how to restrain.
Yeah, this is kind of the problem because suppression is
like the first line of defence in our minds.
When you some bad thought comes up, we get angry.
And you know, this is not the right time to get angry.
Actually, it's never the right time to get angry, but but
sometimes it's really bad time to get angry, right?
You, you are really inappropriate.
And usually what we do is we suppress because we don't know
any other means of doing it. And so the right way of dealing
with it, using restraint, is actually to use wisdom rather
than using willpower. Yeah.
And understanding that actually this anger that I'm getting
right now, it is not helpful. It is going to be
counterproductive. Yeah.
And it because it is not helpful.
Is it because it's counterproductive.
What's the point of getting angry here?
And sometimes that's enough to get the anger to kind of die
down straight away because, you know, it's not going to achieve
any good results. All the results of anger are
usually negative ones. It may achieve some very
immediate results, Yeah, because people get a bit afraid of angry
people. So maybe they will shut up, but
they won't have any long lasting results and beneficial results.
So just that can be enough. But one of the recommendations
that I would use in especially when it comes to anger and and
dealing with anger is to always remember that other people are
not really autonomous beings who are out to get you or to do the
wrong thing. They are just conditioned beings
and they do things because of their own inner conditioning is
coming out in their conduct. They can't usually help
themselves. Yeah, I mean, I sometimes if
you, if I ask people, you know, try not to get angry for a whole
week, They they know it's impossible.
They can't do that. And the reason they can't do it
is because they're not in control of themselves, right?
We're not really in control of our own minds.
They are conditioned. So when you see someone else
doing something wrong or bad or whatever, remember that they
aren't conditioned to be like that.
They probably can't help themselves.
And the moment you see that, if you understand this properly,
you will understand that instead of getting angry with a person
because they are being silly or stupid, actually you should have
compassion for them because they are trapped in this thing.
They're trapped in this behaviour, right?
They can't help themselves. And someone who is trapped by
the habits or trapped by the behaviour, it's like someone who
is in prison. And of course, if someone is in
prison against the will, not understanding what is going on,
how can you not have compassion? And this is the idea of using
wisdom. And if these ideas are kind of
really deeply embedded in your mind, if you have reflected on
these ideas again and again, so you have the clarity understand
why they actually are real, why they work.
While they reflect reality, they actually reflect the way people
actually are. Once you get that, wow, it is
incredibly, incredibly powerful. And you will convey it difficult
to get angry after a while. Yeah, because you always see
people in this way. And that is what I mean by this
is a powerful way of using restraint, you know, using
wisdom to stop the thing that the arising of these negative
thoughts. And sometimes you may have to
use a little bit of just willpower as well.
Not always. Maybe the the the wisdom power
is going to succeed. But if you want to use
willpower, then don't suppress forcefully, just hold the back,
don't act on the anger, Right? It's it's more like stopping the
action rather than actually stopping the anger.
Because if you stop the anger itself, then very often what
you're doing is it just suppressing it doesn't really
give any good results. So just stop the actions that
come from that and then try to use wisdom to overcome the
actual defilement itself. And then you are on the right
track. Yeah, usually I recommend I, I
think for anger and I'll will, this is where this is most
useful because that is the kind of the one problem, the one
thing that causes so much havoc and so much problems in our
lives. So if you can do it with anger
and I'll will, you're doing really, really well now.
OK, OK, OK. Hi, thank you.
Adam. I hope it's OK.
I wanted to ask maybe a personal question to you about your
journey into monastic life and what the challenges were for
you, if there were any, in renouncing to become fully
engaged with monastic life. OK, so I would say, so for me,
it was kind of a strain for me, it sort of happened almost very
organically. I would say it happened quite
naturally. I, you know you, I sort of
started reading, doing some meditation as a layperson and I
had some quite nice experiences in my meditation and I just
became interested in meditation practice and kind of
spirituality in general. It just sort of happened.
I went to travel to Asia quite a bit and I read some books about
what is when I was there and I went to some monasteries and the
whole thing for me was very kind of okay.
This kind of is natural. What was the biggest problem?
The biggest problem is always the draw of the world.
Yeah. The draw when your meditation
isn't going well, when maybe you're finding difficulties with
your fellow monastics, usually. Probably.
Probably my fault. But anyway, the difficulties are
there regardless of whose fault it is.
Actually, I don't. I don't.
I never think of anything as being my fault or other people's
fault. It's just nature happening, the
world happening. Yeah, it's no one's fault.
It's just difficulties happening in the world.
And whenever there are difficulties like that and you
feel maybe a bit down or you don't feel happy, your
meditation things aren't going well, then it's very easy to see
the draw of the world. Yeah, very easy to see more.
I could just relax. I could have a, you know, you
could have a relationship maybe, or you could have three meals a
day, or you could watch entertainment and do all of
these kinds of things. And these become much more
interesting. And that is always the most
difficult part because we feed on happiness.
We feed on joy. Everyone wants to be happy,
Yeah. And the moment the happiness is
gone, you're going to look for it somewhere else, and that will
then be the world. That's where you're looking for
the happiness. So that is the most difficult
thing. So you have to kind of deal with
those times through faith. And that is where the faith and
the Buddhist teaching really matters enormously understanding
those teachings to a deep extent.
So you have confidence that these teachings really work.
And when you have that confidence, then you're willing
to go through hard times and come out on the other side.
And then of course, when you come out on the other side, then
you haven't learned something, you have understood something
more because you take all the difficulties as a learning
experience and then you are wiser when you come out on the
other side. And that of course becomes then
grist for the male. And you know, the path goes even
better as a consequence. So that's kind of roughly how I
would what I would say him. Yeah.
All right, so. Thank you, it's good to see you
again and thank you so much for the teaching today.
It was relevant as I'm am considering monastic life, but
also just a very good teaching in general.
So one of my my question was about your comments about
relinquishing the sense of self is kind of this this last
pronunciation, and this is something I've been reflecting
on lately is something that can be sticky and get in the way.
So I wondered if you had any tips about ways of kind of
looking at this self is something that's not very solid
and gets in the way of our ultimately being able to develop
a good spiritual life. I mean, of course there's
reflecting on the condas and dependent origination, but I
wondered if you have any tips or similes or something that can
kind of use that that process alone?
Yeah, OK. So yeah, the sense of self, how
to deal with the sense of self. I, I think, I mean, it's
difficult to really fully deal with the sense of self because
it is very deeply seated in that.
So all you can really do is deal with it in a superficial way and
the rest of it will happen down the path because, you know, you
need all these other conditions to be in place to be able to see
through this sense of self. So, so I would say one of the
main ways of dealing with the sense of self is actually just
to practice the noble head for path by practicing right space,
by practicing right conduct, by avoiding ill will, etcetera,
etcetera. You actually that requires a
giving up of the sense of self. It requires a giving up of self
concern of of you know, stinginess and all of these kind
of things. So you are actually already
doing it by practicing those things.
It is happening automatically now.
Very often people ask these kind of questions, how do I give up
my attachments? How do I give up my sense of
self? How do I do all of these
profound things? Actually, everything really
comes back to the novel part. That is where the problem, that
is where all problems are resolved through that particular
practice. But it is also useful to reflect
on, you know, more directly on the sense of self and the ego.
And sometimes you can see how it lands in trouble all the time.
Yeah, it always lands in the difficulties.
That's kind of the, the, you know, you end up with arguments
or discussions or all kind of things, or you feel hurt.
Yeah, you feel hurt. Why do you feel hurt?
Well, because the sense of self has been hurt, Right.
This is such a common experience in our life.
And very often you, you know, you, you realise this is just a
conditioned response. There isn't, you know, it
doesn't really make any, you know, why, why do we feel hurt?
And then it's kind of what does it matter any or what other
people think, what other people do, they're just following their
own going to the beat or their own inner drummer, right?
And they don't really understand what what is going on.
And very often just by reflecting on this in this way
and seeing this kind of ego being a big nuisance leading to
all of these kind of problems, you actually start to let go of
it a little bit and you understand that this kind of,
it's not a real, it's not real what is going on.
This is kind of this interaction between beings and you're
getting hurt for absolutely no reason.
Of course, it's still is part for the course.
You shouldn't avoid that hurt. You can't just suppress it, but
you can eliminate it, alleviate it a little bit by just kind of
giving up a little bit of that concern and sense of self.
Yeah. Anyway, so there you are.
Good luck. OK?
Yeah, OK. Hello, John.
Thank you. Yeah, just a question.
I, I think I kind of know the answer, but I was just wondering
really have any tips? Really.
I feel like, you know, you've got the, the world as we call it
in the sensory world, the lay life and a lot of that I feel
sort of goes in One Direction and the spiritual life in
another. And I feel that whenever I'm a
naturally, I'm a layperson, got a family, etcetera.
It's very hard because I feel like even doing things sometimes
my family's taken me away from the spiritual life.
So do you have any potentially tips to, to how you can make it
more, more sort of 1 and and yeah, balance maybe?
It's nice to see you again, Sean.
Anyway, you're the cyclist, right?
Is that right? The cycling?
Okay, good. So, yeah, so this is this is, I
think, a very important question.
I think it's a question that everyone should really
contemplate. And the answer is very simple,
but putting it into practice is often quite difficult, right.
So I don't envy you the idea of putting it into practice, but
the answer is basically just that you have to make everything
in your life part of the spiritual path.
Yeah. So when you are with your
family, well, what does that mean?
Well, it means that how can I care for my family in a way that
kind of reflects the Dumber? How can I care for my kids or my
wife or whatever it is that you, whatever relationship it is that
you have? How can I care for these people
who are so close to me in a way that is a course with a Dumber
where I'm truly kind, truly being a benefit, truly doing the
right thing. Yeah.
And then you are kind of having this idea of service again and
you permeate your entire life for this idea of service and
kindness and kind of doing something for the world.
So that will then be your family life, It will be your
professional life or whatever work it is that doing.
It will be your spiritual life. I mean, your spiritual friends,
you also want to treat them and back to that way.
You want to be of service for all of these people coming
together. And as you, as you do that, as
you kind of apply these teachings to everyone around you
without caring. Yeah, You cannot really afford
to care too much whether people reciprocate or whether they have
any confidence in the dumb or whether they all of that has to
go out the window. Forget about all of that.
The only thing you need to be concerned about is your conduct
in relation to these other people.
And as you do that, you start to, you know, equal actually,
everything in your life starts to become a part of this path.
So, and, and you know, family life is a very tricky one.
I mean, I, you know, I have, we have all lived family life.
We know how hard it can be. We're so close to people.
When you're so close to people, it's very easy to rub up against
each other, very easy to have little arguments and irritations
and all these kind of things. So it's a very, very good
training ground. If you can deal with family
life, if you can deal with your family, you can deal with
anyone, right? That's kind of the, this is
ground 0 when it comes to kind of the, the, the spiritual
practice. So try, yeah, this is kind of
what this this is. So you do your very best in that
area. And I think it actually it is a
potential for a lot of lot of growth in the spiritual path.
You start to look at your family members in a new way.
You use the reflection of the Buddha of non self.
You rue this idea that these are your kids are people who came
into your life. They have the past.
They already have foreign personalities.
There's only so much you can do right with your kids.
If they are in a certain way, it's nothing to do with you.
It just has to do with the way they came into the world.
Yeah, don't, don't live through your kids.
Don't think that your person is reflected in your kids
behaviour. If my kids behave badly, I will
look bad. Forget about all of that, right.
That is kind of a self concern and start to take this kind of
Buddhist outlook whereby you kind of go with the flow and you
start to, yeah, you start to actually implement these
teachings fully in in this particular way.
So I wish, I wish you good luck, Sean.
I'm glad I don't have that challenge, but I that's great.
All right. So have we come to the end?
Is that correct? Yeah.
OK. So I I guess so should I pass
this over to to Shell? Is that right?
Do you want to finish this up? Thank.
You, Ajan, I've just posted some links in the chat.
So thank you so much, Ajan, for such beautiful and serene
meditation and your wisdom this morning.
It's so inspiring to hear from you, a Biku supporter and
spiritual advisor of Ani Kampa. And we're so fortunate to be
offered the teachings of early Buddhism.
Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu. We're very grateful that Ajan
has come this morning. Well, even for Ajan and given
his time to help us with our two aims to promote the teachings
and practices of early Buddhism leading to full awakening and
help to establish the first forest monastery in England
where women can take filled bikini ordination.
Thank you so much Aja, and for all your support to Anu Kemper.
It was a delight to hear in the announcements yesterday before
the Friday night teaching with Bante Sujatu at the BSWA, the
support for Anu Kemper. Adam Bram is fundraising for
Annie Kemper for his birthday appeal and his tour in November
for us was also promoted. We're deeply grateful for the
support we received from the BSWA with Philip Mehta for
Venerable Chanda who his retreat in the USA is coming to an end
and she'll be joining the Sango in Perth later next week for her
range retreat and we continue to support the amazing project she
commits her life to. All these teachings are offered
in the spirit of Dana generosity.
If you are able, we're asking for your Dana towards Anacampa.
We have seen the project flourished this past year and
wish to continue to support the Bikini Sanga in the UK and start
raising funds to expand from our beautiful Bahara in Oxford to an
even bigger abode to house more bikinis, aspirants and lay
supporters. Without the support of the
community here this morning and the wider community, we wouldn't
be where we are today, spreading the teachings of the Buddha to
all. If you can, we're asking for
monetary donations to support the expansion of Anicampa.
However small or big you're able to give.
Every penny is so gratefully received to support the Bikini
Sanga and get even closer to having a full more forest
monastery for bikinis in the UK. Please visit the website to
donate and the link is in the chat.
If you can offer a one of you can offer a one off donation or
more regular monthly donations that will really support the
project. There will be opportunities for
to offer food donor for the Vahara in December onwards and
offer your time at the Vahara from the New Year.
Should you wish to offer these please e-mail
team@anacampaproject.org. Please also see the Anacampa
website for the weekly teachings.
We are being offered by the wonderful Weekly Knees and Adam
Ramali supporting Annie Campbell.
Venerable Chandler is on retreat as well as Adam Bram's tour and
his teachings in November, which are open to booking and
Venerable Chandler's retreats and talks.
She'll be given on her return in the UK in Oh Sorry, I'm her
return in the UK, the US and Norway.
Her cheating exterior at Gaya House in Devon in the UK is now
open for booking and you can find the link on the Annie
Campbell website. She'll be teaching this retreat
with Barnett von Kloss, who's a wonderful lay Dharma teacher and
he's actually currently completing a PhD in Vadina.
Please note that next Sunday we'll be back to our usual time
at 7:30 PM British Summertime and will be a peer LED session
with Liam the following Sunday, the 6th of August.
We're delighted to have been of Rolton Peka back with us too
with deep gratitude for your time this evening Ajam and thank
you all for coming and sharing the together.
Yeah, nice to see you all again and take care everyone.
OK, bye. Bye.