OK everyone, so welcome again. Can't have too many welcomes,
right? And more welcomes the better.
That's what I that's what I reckon and it's nice to see you
all. It's always a positive thing to
come here to the Buddhist society has a nice feeling to
this place. I don't know what you think, but
I feel it has a nice feeling, a nice vibe.
As they say, you sit down and you kind of just draw in some of
the atmosphere. And this is one of the reasons
why we come here, because it kind of supports the meditation
when you have a sense of good companionship and good people
around you. And these are all very important
perceptions to develop. And if you develop these
perceptions, it is a very, very helpful for the meditation.
And I'm also very fortunate. I live in the monastery.
You believe that it's true. I live in the monastery, and
living the monastery has many advantages.
One of the great things about living the monastery is you have
really good companions in the monastic life.
Yeah. And this is one of the beautiful
things about having monks around you, like Venerable Mocha over
here, is that these are really good people, people who try to
do their best, try to aspire to something wonderful.
And just that aspiration, just like almost all of you here
today. Maybe all of you, actually, I
shouldn't say almost all of you, all of you here today.
Yeah. You have some kind of positive
aspiration, otherwise you wouldn't be here.
And that's a wonderful thing. Yeah.
But what I want to talk to talk about tonight is actually some
similes of the Buddha. You know, one of the things that
I feel is my job as a monk, as a teacher of the Dhamma is to
bring out the word of the Buddha, bring out the Buddha's
teachings. It's kind of what this very much
what Buddhism is about, to understand what the Buddha
actually taught her. And I don't know if you have
tried to reach the suitor. Sometimes people try to read the
suitors and they started yawning straight away.
First paragraph boring. Can't read this.
And you know, it's not entirely. If you do find it boring, it is
not entirely strange because these teachings were originally
given in an oral context. Yeah, there were oral teachings
and oral teachings. Because of the way oral
recitation works, it has to be very repetitive.
That's how you understand how you keep it in mind, how you
preserve it for the future. So oral literature or oral
recitation is not really so suited for reading.
Yeah. So when you read it, it can seem
quite boring sometimes. But there's one thing in the
Suitors of the Buddha that's actually really interesting.
Yeah. And that is the symbolies of the
Buddha. They are really often very
lively. They give a kind of flavour to
the teachings. And there's something about the
genius of the Buddha that really comes out in the similes, this
ability to come up with a simile that illustrates a certain point
of Dhamma almost perfectly. Yeah, kind of.
It's like, wow, this is just such a beautiful way of putting
it. Yeah.
And this is one of those amazing things of the Buddha, and it
really comes out in the suit is. So even if you just read the
sutas for the similes. Yeah, it's worthwhile.
So read the sutas for the similes.
It's kind of an insider kind of hint.
Yeah. So read or get boring.
Boring. Ah, simile.
OK, Read the simile. Next simile to the page. 3
pages. OK, next one.
Read that one. That's what I'm going to do
today. Yeah.
Just simulate. Nothing else.
Just to kind of keep things really exciting.
Yeah. Is that good idea?
Is that alright? Yeah.
Do you approve? Yeah, if you don't approve.
I don't care. Let's see, see, we're going to
do it anyway. So, so I'm going to start with a
couple of similes that are found in one of the suit.
There's a suitor called the Nepal is called the Alagadupa
Masuta, and the middling sayings of the Buddha is a simile of the
cobra. Simile of the snake is often how
it is translated in this particular suit.
It starts off fairly early on. It has two similes, and these
are very well known similes in the Buddhist world, and they are
obviously well known for a reason, because they are worthy
of contemplation or whatever. And one of the things that you
will often see is that some of the core teachings of the
Buddha, like the similes, sometimes they are repeated
elsewhere, but sometimes they are referred to her in other
parts of the suitors. This is one of those strange
things that you realise with the suitors.
It's like there are an integrated whole.
Yeah, in one place they refer to something that happens somewhere
else. In one place they just give the
name of the simile without giving the content.
It's understood that is explained somewhere else.
The whole thing is like a cohesive whole referring to each
other. And this is what gives us very
much the flavour of being spoken by one person.
Yeah. Because everything refers to
each other in this kind of remarkable way.
It is a cohesive and a complete hall.
And without all the bits, it doesn't really hold together
properly sometimes. So this first simile is known as
the simile of the snake. Yeah.
Do you know the simile of the snake?
Yeah. Nayana, no, I don't have to
answer this. You probably know it already.
And some of you are very educated in Buddhism.
And sometimes, you know, as a as a monk, sometimes we find people
who travel around the world and people know more about Buddhism.
And you do. And it's kind of scary sometimes
when that happens and you start to say something imperially and
then we'll kind of say it 10 times as fast as you.
Yeah, all the way to the end, not just halfway, like I can.
And that's kind of very interesting.
When that happens, the symbol of the snake is a very interesting.
Similarly is the idea that how we deal with the teachings of
the Buddha. And this is a nice starting
point because how we deal with the teachings of the Buddha kind
of gives us access to the world of the Buddha or the word of the
Buddha, if you'd like. And that access is really what
we call right view. Yeah, right view, the beginning
of the Noble 8, full path samadhiti, the starting point of
everything. If you haven't got a little bit
of that right view, you don't even get started.
So how we deal with these teachings is foundational
because that is where we actually enter this world view
of the Buddha himself. And so the symmetry of the snake
says that if you you have to read the suit as in the right
way. And if you read the suit as in
the right way, it is very beneficial for you.
But if you read the suit as in the wrong way, it can be
detrimental for you. Yeah.
So it's actually very important to understand how to read the
suit as how to approach the word of the Buddha.
And the Buddha says it's like a snake.
Yeah. Yeah.
The suit that starts, it's kind of interesting how we start it
or the symbol it starts by, say, if you need a snake, if you are
in need, if someone is searching for a snake, in need of a snake.
Yeah, I always found out really curious when I was like, what do
you mean, in need of a snake? We tried to run away from the
snakes, only we're not searching for snakes.
Yeah. If I see a kind of a tiger snake
in the Bush, there's a big snake on my walking path just the
other day, you're just outside my window, just two metres away,
this really big snake, Fat, fat, big snake.
Yeah. And then it kind of walked.
It kind of went, it didn't walk, but it kind of, you know,
slithered away or whatever. And then it kind of somehow went
under my walking path there. And then it found a hole in The
Walking path and it stuck it head up out of The Walking path
just as I came out. And it was kind of looking at me
and it froze when I came out of my door.
It's kind of, it's like, like a stick coming out of The Walking
path. So I didn't say I'm in need of a
snake. But anyway, that's what the,
that's what the suitor says. So this man, Yeah.
Or this person is wandering in search of a snake.
Yeah. And if you are unskilled, if you
don't know how to handle a snake, you grab the snake by the
tail. And if you grab the snake by the
tail, Yeah. What happens that the snake
turns around and it bites you? You know, if it is a cobra,
Cobras are very, very poisonous snakes, as in this particular,
similarly. That's it, you're finished.
You know, in Thailand they call the the cobra the king cobra.
They call it the one step snake. Yeah, because after you're
bitten, you go to one step and that's it.
The one step snake is a kind of a nice name for a for a snake.
And so this is kind of the wrong way of grasping the cobra.
In the same way you grasp the teachings in the wrong way.
And the wrong way of grasping the teachings is that you learn
the teachings, but you don't really investigate them
properly. You don't understand what is the
real meaning of these teachings. You don't acquire a view that
aligns with those teachings. Instead, maybe you use the
teachings to argue about things. Yeah.
There is rebirth.
No, there's not rebirth. Sure, you fool.
I know there was a rebirth. What do you mean I'm fool?
You are the fool. Yeah.
And there's kind of a. It's interesting in the suit as
those examples of this kind of arguing found in the suit, as
this is exactly how they argue. Yeah.
Your doctrine has been refuted. Save your doctrine if you can.
Yeah. This is kind of how they kind of
how they argue. And this is kind of the ancient
Indian idea of debate. Yeah.
It's really kind of full on, in your face debating.
Yeah. And that is wrong because if you
do that, all you do is create more turmoil, more disharmony,
more bad, combine all of these kind of things.
Yeah. It doesn't really get anywhere
if all you do is arguing, argue about these teachings.
But if you look around the Buddhist world, it is quite
common here. Yeah.
And often it happens also in monastic circles as well.
One of the things that it says in the suit is, is that they
talk about the difference between lay people or
householders and monastics. And they say that lay people,
householders, they often argue about the things of the world.
Yeah. They argue about what they, you
know, what can be acquired or had in the world and these kind
of things. Whereas monastics argue about
views. Yeah.
And it's quite a common thing. Yeah.
Because views, the path obviously is fundamentally
important for you as a monastic. Yeah.
And so argue about that. But it's not shouldn't be about
arguing. Yeah.
It shouldn't be about understanding.
Yeah. And you end up creating lots of
bad merit or demerit if you use it only in that way.
You use it to be proud, use it to show off your understanding.
How much do you know of power you have to aggregate certain
parley words? Yeah, I know that.
You do know all the cases of the parley nouns.
You don't. Ha.
I do that sort of thing, Right. And then it doesn't really work.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because then it becomes counterproductive.
So what is the right way here? Well, what is the right way of
catching a snake? Yeah, Well, the right way of
catching a snake is that you have a stick.
First of all, you don't use your hands, right?
You use a stick. You want to catch a snake.
Yeah. And you have a cleft stick, a
stick that kind of has a cleft on the bottom.
And then when you grab the when you want to get the snake, you
put the cleft down and you put the cleft over the neck of the
snake. Yeah.
And once you put that clefted stick over the neck of the
snake, then you can grab it by the neck.
And if you grab it by the neck, obviously it can't bite you.
So what is the equivalent of grabbing the snake by the neck
in terms of reading the suit? The equivalent is reading the
suttas. Reflecting on the meaning.
Yeah, Yeah. What does this mean for me here?
What is this Suta really about? How does it affect my life?
You start to internalise the suitor.
Yeah. Instead of being an intellectual
thing, something that is in your head, something you argue about,
it's something that actually becomes personal to you.
It has a deep kind of meaning for you.
You understand what it means to be moral.
You understand what it means to be kind.
It's a felt experience that you have inside of you.
And the Buddha says live well. You understand why you're
supposed to live well. Yeah.
You relate these things to your personal experience of the
world. And then as you do that, as you
reflect on these teachings in the in the right way, making
them your own, you acquire the view of the Buddha.
You start to see the world in the same way.
Yeah. And then it becomes incredibly
powerful because then what you're doing is you're purifying
the first factor of the noble edible path.
Some diti right view is getting purified.
And that becomes this incredible powerhouse, drives the entire
path. I gave another talk here just a
few weeks ago in beginning of January, and that was on how
right view is the foundation of so many things in Buddhism.
Yeah. And this is really making the
same kind of point, but from a slightly different angle.
Yeah. So use the suitors in the right
way, reflect on them, try to figure out what they are about.
And then you don't argue anymore because you understand that
argument is part of the problem. Yeah, We don't want to argue.
In fact, we want to create harmony in this world.
Yes, we have to discuss things, but if you're going to have a
discussion, you have a discussion which is kind of
peaceful, where you try to uncover the truth rather than to
win the argument. It's no longer about your sense
of self, about whether you are right or not.
It's about trying to understand. And if you try to understand,
you can have very productive discussions with other people
because both people are listening rather than trying to
present your view. This is the right way of dealing
with the Buddhist teachings. Yeah.
The symbol of the snake. Don't grab the teachings by the
tail. Yeah, if you do that, you have a
problem, and then you are on the right track.
Then you start to read these teachings, and then they start
to become meaningful and powerful to you.
Then there is the second simile found in this particular suitor.
And this is a very famous simile of the raft.
Do you know the symbol of the rafter?
Does anyone know the symbol of the rafter?
Yes. One person over there.
Only one person. Well, OK, Drew, of course.
Yeah. Drew knows all the symbols in
the suitors. I didn't even see you, Drew.
I should have, if I've seen you. I've never asked the question.
No, of course. Yeah, Nicholas of course knows
that one. And many of you will know the
symbol of the. It's very famous.
Similarly. Yeah.
And so when you come to these teachings and you start to read
them, the main thing that you start to uncover in the suitors
is that the suitors are not so much explanations about how the
world works. Yeah, if you would call it
metaphysical ideas about the world.
In other words, theories about the world, ideas about, you
know, what actually is and what is not.
The vast majority of the suitors are really about the path of
practice. Yeah, that's really what they
are about. And the more you read them, the
more you read all that, because that is the critical.
Thing, yeah, What we have to do to achieve all the good things
in life, meaning happiness, joy, everything that is useful in
life is acquired by practising this particular path.
And so the symbol of the raft is really about the path, Yeah.
And how we should deal with that path and how it actually works.
So what I'm going to talk about later on as a Similis progress,
I'm going to use Similis to show the path of Buddhism through
Similis, how it works through Similis.
But this is like an overview of the path and the simile.
Is as follows. As a man or a person, I should
say, it doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman.
A person walking along. And as they walk along, they
come to a river. Yeah, a large expanse of water,
a deluge. Whatever it might be, call it a
river. And when they come into this
river, yeah, they realise that the shore they're on is
dangerous. The shore they're on is full of
wild animals and dangerous things and robbers and criminals
and murderers. Murderers.
You know what the murderers are? In this case, the murderers are
the five Kundas. Yeah, That is who you are.
You are your own murderer. It's not kind of interesting.
Yeah. Why?
Or because these Khandas, ultimately attachment to them is
what leads to death. Ultimately, the Khandas are the
murderers. This is not a simile, but it's
similarly related to this one. So this shore is dangerous, and
you see this large expanse of water, and you know, the far
shore is a safe shore, so you need to cross.
But there is no bridge. There is no ferry person to take
you across to the other side. Yeah.
A ferry person is like someone who takes you across, right.
You don't have to do anything. There's no spiritual practice.
You just pray to God and bang, you go to the other side.
It's too easy. Yeah, it doesn't work like that.
And so instead of just taking the ferryman, allowing the
ferryman to take across because there is no ferryman, you have
to make your own way across. You have to build a raft.
So you gathered together all the little wood, the flotsam that is
there, the leaves and the sticks or whatever, and you tie
together a raft or yourself, and this raft that you're tying
together, that is the Noble Eightfold Path.
Yeah, right there. This is the raft that takes us
from the dangers of life, the dangers of existence, to the far
shore, which is Nirvana itself. Extinguishment.
That is the meaning of Nirvana. Things get extinguished.
Yeah. So you take this beautiful raft,
you climb onto this raft, and then when you get onto this raft
that you're tied together the noble effort path and you make
an effort here. You make an effort.
You paddle with your hands and maybe you swim a bit with your
feet or whatever. And as you do that, you hold on
to the raft, right? You don't let go of that raft.
You hold on to the raft while you're in the middle of the
stream. And then eventually using that
raft, you get to the other side. And so then the Buddha asked,
but what should you do when you get to the other side?
Should you take this raft or think, oh, this raft has been so
useful, thank you, Raft and then carry it with you wherever you
go because you are attached to that raft.
Or should you put the raft down and beach it on the shore or let
it go on the stream of the river?
And the answer is obvious, right?
There's no point in carrying that raft along.
The draft has done its job. And if you carry it along, you
just kind of showing your attachment to that raft.
There's no point. So you beach it or you let it
go. Yeah, down the stream.
So this is kind of the overall idea of the path, right?
You cross Samsara, you cross the stretches kind of expanse water
to reach the safe side on the other side.
And when you get to the other side, you let go of that raft.
So what does all this mean? What does it mean to let go of
the raft on the other side? And one of the ways that this
has been understood traditional in Buddhism, I don't know, you
may have heard about such ideas as crazy wisdom.
You feel about crazy wisdom? Yeah. 1 Nicholas thought about
crazy wisdom. Crazy wisdom is this idea that
some people have that you can be wise and crazy at the same time.
I always said you either crazy or you're wise.
There's no such thing as crazy wisdom.
But anyway, some people argue this crazy with and this is
where the crazy wisdom comes in, right?
The reason why it comes in here is because you OK, you come to
the side. You're not supposed to carry the
raft. OK, so we put the raft down.
Now the raft is the Noble 8 full path.
So we put the Noble 8 full path down and to one side.
It means we can do what we want because we've gotten rid of the
raft, for goodness sake. It's pleading obvious.
The Buddha says so put the raft to one side, do what you want.
Yeah. There's no limits anymore.
Morality is not relevant for an enlightened person, right?
They have gone beyond morality. Isn't that true?
It is not true. It is the wrong understanding of
the path, but this is sometimes somehow the way you kind of
understand these kind of symbolies.
And this is where the first simile kicks in.
You haven't really reflected properly on the word of the
Buddha. You haven't understood what it
is and therefore it becomes really problematic.
So what it? Actually means is this it is
that when you have crossed that treacherous stretch of water,
the dangerous expanse which is Sansaric existence, the realm of
life and death, of being reborn and.
Dying of all the problems that we have in our life, when you
have crossed that, the process that happens from one shore to
the next one is a psychological change.
You are changing as you go across.
Yeah, you may have noticed that in your own life.
If you practice well, there is change over time.
You're literally becoming someone else.
You're becoming more purified, you're becoming more kind, and
these things come out naturally. And when you reach all the way
to the you have taken these teachings so deeply that they
have transformed you psychologically to such an
extent that it is impossible for you to live against the Noble 8
Full Path. Yeah, you can't do it anymore.
You have internalised these things.
In a sense, you have become the Noble 8 Full Path.
You are a walking example of the Noble 8 Full Path.
And this is the beautiful thing about, you know, the Dhamma, is
that because people become an expression of the teachings
through the actions, through who they are, because that is what
they've become. It is possible to tell who are
the good teachers in the world. Yeah, by observing them, by
knowing who they are. Do they express this path or
don't they? And if they express the path
well, there is some. Chance that they have achieved
something? Yeah.
If not, well, you know it's wrong.
Yeah. So when it says at the end that
you put down the path, put down the the raft, actually it is
automatic to put down that raft. You don't have to do it.
Yeah, because it happens automatically.
What it means is because you have internalised all of these
things. You don't have to hold on to the
raft anymore. While you are in the middle of
the stream, as you are crossing over, we have to hold onto this
raft a little bit. We have to be careful, OK?
How can I make sure that I live according to the kindness that
I'm supposed to live by? How can I make sure I don't have
too many angry thoughts or whatever?
Yeah, we have to actually hold on a little bit to morality.
But once you have crossed over, you don't have to hold on
anymore. You have internalised.
It's so much. You understand the danger of
doing the wrong things so profoundly that there is no way
you're going to touch those hot coals of immorality and
stupidity here. You let go straight away here.
And that is what happens when you become enlightened.
You're awakened when you understand the nature of things.
One of the things you understand is the danger of doing things
that are not right, doing things wrongly here so you don't have
to let go of the wrath. It happens by itself.
So the point here, those people who carry the raft, once they
have come to the other shore, they haven't actually reached
the other shore. Yes.
If you see someone carrying a raft, is that a common sight in
Perth, people carrying rafts? If you see someone carrying a
raft, yeah, you know they haven't reached the other shore.
Yeah, because that's what people don't do if they have reached
the other shore. If you see someone carrying a
raft, you know something has gone wrong.
What does it mean to carry the raft?
And what it means is that you are still holding onto these
teachings. You're still attaching to them.
You're still. Arguing about, you know, whether
the Buddha was right or not, is there rebirth or not?
You still have some of those defilements of the mind that
we're not supposed to have. That is how people are still
carrying the raft on the other side.
So this is the idea with this idea similarly of the raft and
why it is so important to understand it in the right way.
But the main thing is that the noble it for path is like this
raft. Hold on to it, don't think that
it happens automatically. The right time to let go of the
raft is only when you get to the other shore and then it happens
automatically. So what is this raft?
Yeah, as I said, it is a noble artful path.
Another way of thinking about the noble artful path is in
terms of the three kind of qualities, the sealer samadhi
and panya. Yeah, sealer, morality or
conduct, samadhi, meditation or deep meditation.
And Panya is the wisdom. This is another way of dividing
up the path, right? So the, in a sense, the raft
consists of the these three things.
And sealer is one of those foundational things, the conduct
in our life, how we live our life.
So I'm going to give you a simile for this idea of sealer.
And this is a simile that I have taught a lot, very often when I
teach meditation, retreats and these kind of things.
And it's a similar that made a lot of big impact on me,
especially in my early years as a monk, because I thought it was
very, it was a very powerful inducement to practice morality.
And this is the simile of the mountain.
Yeah. The simile of the mountain when
the sun goes down in the evening.
Yeah. And the sun goes down behind the
mountain. Then the mountain cast this
enormous shadow over the land and all the land in front of the
mountain, because the sun goes down behind the mountain, all
the land is immersed and completely enveloped in that
shadow cast by the mountain. And the Buddha says our
morality, our kindness, our goodness in the world is the
same. If you are a person who live
really well, and I'm talking about really high level now
immorality, when you come back home after a long day, maybe
you're tired. You sit down.
Maybe you lie down on your bed, you sit down in your favorite
chair, or you just chill because you're exhausted after a long
day. Yeah.
And especially giving yourself a bit of time to kind of
recuperate a bit, you can feel the mountain of those good
actions. Yeah.
It's like you are sitting back, like you are bathing in the
shadow, being enveloped by the good actions in your life, and
you think, you reflect. I have lived.
You know that you have lived well.
You don't even have to think it. You know, I haven't done
anything bad in my life. I have done good actions.
I've been generous. I have supported other people.
I've thought with kindness about other people and just that
knowledge because you don't have to think it is enough.
And then you bathe in those good actions, like the shadow
completely envelops the land in front of the mountain.
In the same way you are enveloped and immersed in the
goodness of your own life. And you cannot avoid being
happy. You cannot avoid feeling a sense
of gladness. Yeah, because the power of those
actions is so great. Isn't that wonderful?
You can't avoid even if you want to be miserable, you can't be
blooming miserable. It's not good news.
And of course, you don't want to be miserable.
And so this is this idea of the power of morality.
It is automatic that you will feel good about yourself if you
live up to the high standards of Buddhist morality.
But you have to take it really seriously.
You have to really understand how powerful it is.
So you take it incredibly seriously, and then it has this
kind of transformative effect. When I was here last time, I
gave a simile for how to help us to purify our morality, how to
make morality very powerful and important in your life, how to
remember it all the time that you have to live Well, Yeah.
And this similarly is based on the idea again, that right view
is at the foundation of everything on the Buddhist path,
and right view is also at the foundation of morality.
If you really have right viewer, you will be moral all the time.
You will slip up, maybe like that very shortly.
And as soon as you slipped up, you beg for forgiveness straight
away to overcome that slip up. That's how powerful it is.
There's a nice expression of this to bring in.
Some sub similes are the main similes.
I like the ones that I'm going to talk and it's just some sub
similes, secondary similes to kind of fill in the gaps between
the other similes. This other simile is the simile
of the how someone who is a noble person, how they practice
the path. Yeah.
Why they are able to always live ethically, why they're always
are close to samadhi, why the wisdom is always there.
And the Buddha says it's like a cow with a calf or maybe a
mother with a baby. Yeah.
And the Buddha says when the cow has a calf, no matter what that
cow does, if it is grazing or going from 1 field to the next
one or going to be milked or whatever it is, it always keeps
an eye on the calf. It never forgets that calf.
Yeah, this is the power of the noble ones.
They never forget the calf. So the noble ones don't forget
the calf. What is the calf of the noble
ones? It is the practice of the
Dhamma, it is the morality, it is the meditation, and it is the
wisdom. It is always there, always
keeping an eye on these things. And so last time I was here, I
gave a simile to kind of express this, which I thought was quite
a nice simile. And I've talked about this in a
few different places. And this is connects the idea of
right view with morality. Sometimes people think that to
be moral I have to be really mindful.
Yeah, Because if I'm mindful, I will be aware of my mind and
beware of my actions, and then I will do the right thing.
But actually mindfulness is not strong enough because very often
you lose your mindfulness. You forget what is going on in
the heat of the moment. You'd lose it completely.
And especially even as a monastic.
Yeah, you forget about these right things sometimes as a
labour is even more difficult. So how can we remember these
things when mindfulness gets weaker?
And the answer is right viewer. So I will show you how this
works and it's actually a very simple idea.
Now, if you come to a street, this is what I was saying last
time, if you come to a street, yeah, a busy St.
Like you'd go down to Saint George's Terrace or whatever
down in Perth, right? Or one or maybe one of the
freeway, even worse, and you have to cross the street.
What do you do? Do you just kind of walk into
the street without looking anywhere and just hope for the
best? Or do you look like right and
left? First of all, how many people
you just walk into the street? Nobody, right?
Not a single person. OK, good.
I'm glad. Because if you did that, you you
should probably leave this hall and see a psychiatrist or
something instead, because it's crazy.
I guess sometimes people get so kind of caught up.
I know what it's like with the actually, I don't know what it's
like with a mobile phone because I haven't got one, but I can see
what it looks like. And sometimes people almost walk
into the streets when they're kind of too busy with a mobile
phone. That shows you how crazy you go
with a mobile phone. It's almost like some kind of
psychiatric disorder, but. So you always look left and
right, right. And you don't have to be very
mindful. You don't have to tell yourself
in the morning when you wake up. Today, when I go into the city,
I need to be mindful. So I always remember to look
left and right. You don't even have to think
that it's automatic that when you come to the street you will
look left and right because otherwise you might die here and
you hope. Unless an arrow hand, I wouldn't
recommend dying here. And if you are an arrow hand,
please stay and teach rather than die here.
Yeah, this is what I recommend plenty to do.
So why is it that we look left and right every time?
Why is it that we never forget that because we have right view,
we know the danger. The danger is so deeply embedded
in our mind that whenever you come to a street, you know that
you have to look left and right. It has got very little to do
with mindfulness. It's just a profound knowledge
of the danger of the situation. And in exactly the same way, if
you know the danger of acting wrongly or speaking wrongly, of
thinking wrongly, you will always know when you come to a
point when you have to speak, when you have to act or you have
to think. Yeah.
When you know that, you will always think, first of all, what
is? You will look left, you will
look right. What is the right thing to do at
this moment? And what is the wrong thing?
Yeah. And the reason why we don't do
that is because we think it is less dangerous than crossing the
road. That's why we don't do it.
But what if it is more dangerous?
And I tell you, it is much more dangerous to act wrongly here,
much more dangerous to speak wrongly here, much more
dangerous to even think wrongly than it is to cross that road.
Yeah, If you cross the road, OK, the car comes, you might die,
OK, and get reborn somewhere. You carry on anyway.
It's not such a big deal, right? OK.
You know, we have to die from sooner or later.
So you die a little bit sooner. That's really the only
difference. But if you mess up when it comes
with your morality, what you're doing is you're messing up your
long term future. And you have no idea what's
going to happen in the long term future.
You don't know what's going to happen even with the rest of
your life. And So what we need to do in
this kind of situation, because it's so hard to understand, this
is where we need to use the Buddhist idea of right view to
remind ourselves of the importance of doing things right
now. So what is that right view?
That helps us. And one of those things,
obviously, is the idea of rebirth, because once you
understand the kind of the expanse of Sansaric existence,
of birth, of death coming again and again and again, and that
you now are laying down the groundwork for how we are going
to experience that Sansaric existence in the future.
Your next line of the life after that, the whole broad spectrum
of how your future is going to unfold depends on how you live
now. Yeah, then you start to
understand the power of this. But even more important, I
think, for the majority of people is not just the idea of
the broader idea of Sanghsaric existence, but the uncertainty
right now in our lives. We don't know what's hiding
around the corner. We don't know if tomorrow you're
going to become a Christian. Yeah, tomorrow is going to our
Buddhism. Poor, too hard.
You know, I went to this Dhamma talk.
I heard Ajam Brahma. They say you have to always look
left and right at every time you do an act.
Too much for me. I'm going to Christianity.
I'm just going to pray to God and hope for the best.
Yeah, it could happen. I heard people say these kind of
things. Yeah.
Christianity is a much better deal.
Yeah, than Buddhism. You have to have so much
responsibility, and you really have to practice really hard or
whatever. Yeah.
But the uncertainty, Yeah, it's so great.
We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
When are we going to die? Change has happened so fast.
Yeah, so fast. We all know that if we look back
in time, we can see changes in the past.
It was a very interesting experiment that was done a while
ago. I read about this a few months
ago, a very fascinating experiment.
And this shows us why it is so important to contemplate
impermanence. Yeah, uncertainty,
unreliability, change. You can now see how all of these
various factors come together, right, by contemplating
impermanence, which is part of right view that supports your
morality. What this experiment said was
that they asked people, first of all, to look into the past.
Yeah, like go 10 years back in the past and ask them, can you
see the changes in your life? Can you see the changes in your
personality? Can you see that you have
developed the things that happened to you one way or the
other? And they said, oh, yeah, I can
see the change is coming. And then, of course, you know, I
became a, you know, better person or a worse person because
this happened. And I'm kind of now I'm here and
wow, I've gone a long way in those ten years.
And it's kind of amazing how much change has happened.
But then came the interesting point, because then they asked
them, well, now try to look 10 years into the future.
Can you see the change in the future?
And what was very interesting was that, no, most people, when
they looked into the future, what they saw was basically just
a slightly different person of themselves.
Maybe someone who was a bit more wealthy, maybe someone who is a
bit fatter because they're getting older, maybe someone who
is getting a bit, you know, whatever it is, older at least.
But basically, they were not able to understand the change in
the future. Only change in the past were
they able to see her. And this shows us how difficult
it is. Even a very simple idea like
impermanence anicha in the certain, the idea of the
unreliability of the world. The a simple idea like that that
we take for granted very often that we think we understand.
Actually, we don't really get it because once we try to look at
it into the future, we're not able to see that impermanence in
the future. And part of the reason for that
is because the sense of self, the sense of self demands
stability, demands certainty, and it blocks us from seeing,
being able to see how things actually change.
So if you want to understand the future, don't try to think of
the future. Look to the past instead.
You look at the change that happened over the last 10 years,
20 years. Look at how the world has
changed. Look at how your life has
changed. Look at how other people's life
has changed. And then you start to understand
what is going on. And the problem is that there's
all of this cause and conditions under the surface.
Yeah. It's like when you have an
earthquake. You have seen an did you see an
Icelander? All this, this, this and
volcanoes and things coming out. It's kind of in one sense it's
kind of cool, but it's in other sense it's also quite scary if
you live there, obviously. But there's all these tensions
building up underground, all of this seismic activity, and
suddenly one day it comes to a crunch and the whole earth opens
up, tears apart, and the lava comes flowing out.
And it's the same thing in our life under the surface.
There's all these things, cause and conditions, building up,
building up and building up until one day they come together
and they have a such force that they make a dramatic change in
your life and you don't see it. And then when you see it, what's
happening? Why is this happening?
The reason it's happening is because it's been building up
for a long time out of sight, and you didn't even know it was
going on. So impermanence is incredibly
scary because it is so uncertain.
Yeah. You look at the world, you look
at the politics, you look at the wars around.
People are now starting to talk about the third World War.
Yeah. This is starting to become a
serious talk, you know, among people who know what they're
talking about. Is that something we want?
This is how kind of the world is.
Yeah. It is so unreliable.
If someone had said two years ago or three or before the
invasion of Ukraine about the Third World War, you would
laugh. It seems so ridiculous.
But suddenly it seems like a possible reality.
That's kind of scary here. Yeah, because war is incredibly,
incredibly unpleasant. And so we understand the danger,
we understand the uncertainty. And when you start to do that,
you start to understand now is the time to practice kindness.
Not after this talk, but now. What am I supposed to do right
now to practice morality? Well, first of all, I will try
to speak to you with I should speak a bit more kindly, right?
Maybe I'm doing using too much energy into the way I speak,
like a bit more gentle maybe. OK, everyone's a whoa.
What is the right way right now? I was just sitting.
It was interesting. Today I was sitting in a
monastery because I happened to be the senior monk in an honest
runner. Ajam Brahm is the way.
Ajam Brahm is in Sydney. Ajam Happy is in.
Thailand. So I am the boss, ha ha.
So I kind of Lord it over the junior monks, is that right?
Then we mock. So but it but it was interesting
because I was sitting at the kind of the boss monkey and I
was looking at everyone was there, right?
And I was looking at and I was thinking at that because I have
tried to condition myself in this way over a long, long
period of time. And so I very often think this
thought, yeah, what should I be doing right now?
Which is kind of what is right. And I was sitting there looking
out and I was thinking, what should I actually be doing right
now? Then, of course, the thought
came to me right away. What I should do is look at the
beautiful qualities of all the people in front of me, because
these are really good people. And straight away I looked out,
I saw all these monks and I saw people who intend, who want to
do what is good in the world. How does anyone become a monk or
a nun or even coming here without wanting that?
And straight away, I felt the sense of goodness about sitting
there in a group of people that actually is very wholesome and
beautiful. That was the right thing to do
at that that time. That is the right thing to do
right now. Yeah.
What should I do right now? Yeah, this is what I should do.
Or if I can't do that because of some problem, at least I can
have compassion for the people around me because I know we're
all suffering together in this world right now is something
there's always something we can do to live in the right way
because we understand the urgency isn't this moment, not
the next moment. And the Buddha has another
beautiful simile. There's another sub simile.
There's not the real simile. Yeah.
So to kind of put this on the sub sub level, but not the main
level. And this is the simile of the
head being on fire or your clothes being on fire.
It occurs a number of places in the suitors.
And the Buddha says that if you have some bad quality in your
mind, bad quality in your conduct or speech, you should
look at look upon it as if your clothes are on fire.
Well, what do you do if your clothes are on fire?
Well, presumably you act pretty quickly, right?
OK, try to get it. I mean, that's pretty scary if
your. Clothes.
Are or if your head is on fire, your turbine is on fire or
whatever, you kind of act soon, right?
Otherwise you can, you can have a serious problem.
And that is kind of what the Buddha says about our actions by
body, speech and mind. Yeah.
Now is the right time. No other time will come.
Why? Because things are so
impermanent, things are so unreliable, you don't know when
the opportunity comes around next time.
Now is the time to live in this way here.
And if you live in this way here, if you carry on like this
year in, year out, week in, week in, out, day in, day out, second
in, second out. Yeah.
Second in, second out. Right.
All the time. If you do that, you're building
up that mountain that will cast a shadow over you when you
eventually come back home. You sit down, you relax, you let
go of the burdens of the day. You can feel the mountain of
good actions. You feel good about yourself
because you know that you're living a good life.
It's such a beautiful idea. Yeah.
So please make sure that you build up this good mountain in
your life with good actions. Allow that mountain to envelope
you, the shadow of the mountain to envelope you and to kind of
immerse you in that feeling and you feel good inside.
And when you've had that good feeling inside, it gets sense of
self worth, self value, self esteem, knowing that you live
well in the world and knowing that you're doing the right
thing. It's a very, very beautiful
thing, and it becomes the foundation for everything else
on the Buddhist path. So that is the simile of the
mountain. That then becomes the foundation
for the next simile, becomes the foundation for meditation
practice. Because when you have that
goodness in your heart, that positive feeling within, that is
where meditation becomes possible.
And there's a beautiful simile for meditation, which also
happens to be a simile of a mountain there.
Yeah, mountains are. There's actually 3 similes of
mountains here. So I hope you like mountains,
otherwise you have a problem. Most people like mountains,
right? Mountains are kind of cool.
They are big, majestic, often snow on the top or whatever.
There's something very beautiful about mountains.
And so the second simile, which is about explains meditation
practice, is about this. There's a monk who is visited by
Prince. Prince Jayasena comes to this
monk. And what is this monk called
again? Anyway, forget about this.
It's some. It's a.
Monk. It's a kind of.
It only occurs in one suit. It's a kind of minor minor monk
or whatever you want to call it. Actually, that's the right word,
but you get. The idea?
So the Prince comes to this monk, and then.
And he asked. The monk, he says to the monk,
well, I have heard that it is possible to attain this thing
called samadhi, where the mind is completely unified, but I
don't believe a word of it. So you try to convince me.
Yeah, that's what it says to this monk.
It's poor monk. Says actually I'm just new to
the practice. Yeah, I'm just the someone
there. I don't know that much about the
practice. So go and ask the Buddha
instead. Yeah.
And the Prince says, no, I want to hear it from you.
Yeah, because now is the time. But don't wait till tomorrow.
No, he doesn't say that. That's that's what I'm saying in
this talk. Yeah.
So please tell me. And so this he fails, right?
He fails to convince this Prince about the idea of samadhi, of
deep meditation practice. And then this samanera, he feels
really dejected and down because it's unable to convince the
Prince about the value and the profundity of meditation
practice. So he goes to the Buddha, and
this tells the Buddha the story of what happened to him.
And he say. And the Buddha then tells him,
well, if you had remembered these two similes, it may have
been the case that you would have been able to persuade this
Prince. Yeah.
And one of the similes is about the taming of an elephant, how
you kind of gradually tame the elephant and eventually, because
you take a wild elephant, eventually it becomes tame.
The same thing with the human mind.
It is very wild in the beginning.
Yeah. Is that right?
Anyone here got wild minds? Yeah.
You know what it's like? Yeah.
The mind is kind of out of control.
Yeah. It's a bit wild, I think someone
said. That the average person has
70,000 thoughts per day. Yeah, 70 thousand thoughts.
Per day and that. Is and that's that's when you
don't sleep, right. So that is how many thoughts an
hour? That's about 5 that's between 5
and 10,000 thoughts an hour. That's more than the thought per
second yeah. So if you count all the.
You can see how kind of crazy the mind actually probably is.
Probably not entirely wrong to say that.
So you tame the elephant, you tame the mind.
Eventually it comes, becomes OK yeah, becomes enlightened or
whatever. And then there's the other
simile and this is the. Simile of the mountain.
And I find this particularly interesting because it's very
similar to a teaching that Ajam Brahm gives.
Ajam Brahm talks about his time in Central America when he was
climbing the pyramids. And it's like climbing the
mountain, getting out of the jungle of the world.
Yeah. And then seeing things in a new
way. The symbol of the mount is this.
2 friends walking along here and they're walking through the
jungle in the jungle. What is happening?
The jungle is a symbol for life. Yeah.
Similarly, for all the senses always around us, similarly for
all the burdens that we have, all the attachments that we have
in the world, all the things that always impinge on us, that
burdens us down, this is what the world is like.
Yeah. And so we are completely
immersed in this world. We never have any real
perspective. And then as they're walking
through this jungle, these two friends that come to this
mountain, actually, maybe it's just the hill.
Let's call it the hill. The hill is more realistic, I
think. Yeah, so then they come to this
hill and then one friend that says to him and says well, let's
climb the hill. And the other friend said, Nah,
I couldn't be bothered. Yeah.
And now it's kind of the Australian for now.
And I, I'm Australian citizen now, so I got to say use the
Australian link goes and Nah, Nah, I couldn't be bothered.
So OK, you, but you go up, right?
You go up to the top of the mountain.
And so the other friend he goes. Up to the top of the mountain,
Yeah. And he looks out and he kind of
sees all of these things on top of this big hill.
And he shouts down to his friend.
He says, hey, mate, yeah. So I can't do it, but I'm still
not properly. Kind of quite Australian enough,
but it kind of right. You get the idea.
Yeah, Hey friend or whatever. So he shouts down to his friend
down the bottom. And he says, you won't believe
it. When I stand the top of the
mountain, I can see the fields around.
I can see the little roads. I can see the beautiful little
villages, the beautiful little rivers and all of these things
around. It is so magnificent and
beautiful from the top of this mountain.
And then the fellow at the bottom, he says, no, I don't
believe a word of it. What do you mean there's fields?
I can't see anything of it. I don't believe a word or what
you're saying. Kind of a bad friend, right?
Doesn't believe anything what his friend is saying.
But anyway, so his friend on top of them out.
And he gets a bit exasperated because he gets exactly.
He walks all the way down to the bottom of the mountain, grabs
his friend by the arm, pulls him up to the top of the mountain.
And he says, look, what do you see here?
And he says, yeah, I see beautiful fields, little
villages, nice streets and roads.
Yeah. Just now you told me that you
didn't see. Any of these things So what I so
what's going on? He said, oh, because this big
mountain was in the way. I couldn't see any of these
things. And so the big.
Mountain here is a. Similarly for the hindrances of
the mind. Yeah.
The kind of the things that blocked the mind from seeing the
greater reality. Yeah.
And ascending to the top of the mountain, this is like
meditation practice. It's when your mind kind of
withdraws from the world, pulls out of the world, reaches a high
level. And when you reach a high level,
you look out and you understand the world around you for the
first time. You understand what the world
really is like. And what you actually understand
is the human realm. You understand the five senses,
you understand the sensory world.
You understand the world, what our ordinary life is like.
Because you have pulled yourself, you have lifted your
mind out of all of those things. And so you see the reality.
And what you see is very beautiful because these high
states of mind are incredibly powerful and incredibly
beautiful. Yeah.
You realise that this is really, really worthwhile.
If you can have one powerful state of meditation in your
whole life, that will change your entire direction of your
life. One state of meditation like
that. Yeah.
Because you understand that the world is very, very different
from what you thought it was. So this is the power of
meditation, the similar of the mountain, the elevating the mind
like kind of almost like you know a the mind being lifted up
by the helium, by the beautiful light qualities of the mind,
bringing it up and giving with a kind of bird's eye view of
reality here, seeing what really is going on, understanding the
world for the first time. Now you understand what the
world is like. That is the simile of the
mountain. So each one of us, it is our job
if you want to do this path properly here, if you want to
have a life altering experience that gives you a different
understanding of reality. You climb that mountain and you
climb that mountain largely through the process I was
talking about before, which is the scene of the morality.
And then add on top of that the meditation practice.
Come down to Jana Grove Retreat Centre.
Yeah, at least once a year. Do a nice retreat, check out how
your meditation is going. Yeah.
And then see if you can take one step more up that mountain and
if you are heading in the right direction.
Every year, every time you will take a few steps more until one
day you read that top of the mountain there.
And when you're there, then you have one of these traumatic
experiences, Not traumatic dramatic experiences, that
changes your life forever. That much is enough to change
your life forever. But of course, it isn't the end
of the story. So that is the simile.
Of the mountain there. They go, then you have to go
even beyond that. I'll just carry on a few more
minutes then you have to. Go beyond that, the next one,
beyond that, I said there's a three factors, the three ways of
dividing up the noble headful path, seala samadhi, panya,
morality, meditation and wisdom. The next simile is the simile
for wisdom. And the simile for wisdom says
the Buddha is like when you go to a mountain top.
You know, the mountain. Yeah, Yeah.
Everything happened. Now you know why all the sages
and the cartoons are on the mountain tops, right?
It's kind of all coming together now.
I always wonder why the same thing.
A mountain top must be very awkward to get food and drinks
or whatever. But anyway, that's where they
are. Now.
This may be one reason it's kind of inspiring.
So you go up in the mountains and you find, find a mountain
lake. Have you ever seen a mountain
lake before? I used as a child, I used to go
hiking in the mountains a lot in Norway.
It's full of mountains and I could see some of these lakes.
And some of these lakes are incredibly beautiful there on a
still day when nothing is moving.
They are like transparent. There's no pollution because
it's high up. As you look into the lake, you
can kind of see 10 metres down and it looks like there's
nothing. It's more clear than the air,
for goodness sake. Yeah, because the air, the water
is cleaner than the air around it or whatever.
Incredibly clear. And when you look into it, you
see, you see what is there. You see the pebbles, you see the
stones, you see the little fish swimming around and sometimes
you see the fish standing still or whatever.
This is like the mine. Sometimes the mine moves,
sometimes it stands still. And the idea of the mind that is
clear, like a mountain lake, this is the mind that comes out
of the stillness of samadhi. And when you come out of the
stillness of the samadh, that clarity gives you the ability to
see into the mind, all the way to the bottom of the mind,
everything that is going on. And what you see, of course you
see the three characteristics of existence.
You see impermanence, the unreliability of these things
always moving, always changing, the fact that there is no
substance to this, yeah, that there is no self in the ultimate
sense. And because it is all unreliable
and all uncertain, there's nothing to hold onto.
Why it is in the end. Everything is problematic in the
end, and you have to let it go. That is what you see when you
look into the mind. The mind becomes clear.
There is another sub similarly to all the similarities I want
to talk about, and this is the simile of the five hindrances.
The five hindrances say that five hindrances, right?
The sensuality. The sensuality is like the mind
that is coloured, the water full of colours, The sensuality ill
will. The second hindrance is like
water that is boiling. Yeah, yeah.
You can't see into it properly because it's boiling, It's full
of bubbles. The third one is the tiredness
and lethargy. Tiredness.
Lethargy is like Moss on the water.
Yeah. It is like murky and dark.
You can't see into it because the tiredness and lethargy,
restlessness and warrior is like the waters is like there's a
wind on the surface, there's waves on the surface.
And the last one is doubt. Doubt is actually the murkiness.
That's why that is kind of the, the water is like has mud in it
or something. Yeah.
So it's murky and dark. Yeah.
So coming out of those hindrances, the water becomes
clear that like the mountain lake.
Only then can you understand what the mind is about.
And then that is kind of the end of the path.
But then the Buddha has this beautiful similarly that gives
kind of, again, an overview of what it is like to discover all
of this. Yeah.
What is really the spiritual path really about?
One of the most interesting things to me about the spiritual
path, it is like an adventure. This amazing, extraordinary
adventure. Adventure into meaning, into
purpose, into real happiness, into love, compassion,
understanding all the beautiful things in life.
Anything that anyone would want in this world is held in this
path. It is the greatest adventure any
human being can have. You look at people in the world.
They try to climb Mount Everest. They go to the South Pole.
Yeah. They do crazy things in
balloons. They go kind of doing all kind
of dangerous sports. They try to stay alive.
For ordinary people, the adventure is maybe to go to a
new restaurant. Yes, a bit more humble.
That's what people do. Or they kind of do something, go
for another holiday overseas somewhere.
That's kind of their adventure. But we all want adventure.
But if you want the ultimate adventure in your life, that
adventure is the adventure of the spiritual path, the noble at
full path. The Buddha says it is like you
are walking through the jungle. You see the jungle again?
Yeah. The mess of life, the burden of
life, the problem of being immersed in all these conflicts
and all these problems in the world.
You're walking in the jungle there, and then one day you come
across an ancient path. That is the noble at full path
that you come across. And when you follow this ancient
path in the jungle, you don't really know what you're doing,
but you have faith that this path is going to lead you
somewhere. You follow the path, and as you
follow the path, you come to this clearing in the path where
the sunlight is coming through, when you can see what is going
on. And when you see what is going
on, you see this beautiful city, the ancient city, and you
understand that you have arrived at some kind of powerful and
beautiful destination. Yeah.
And then you clear up the destination, you bring the city
back to life again. And then you bring people start
to live there, and the whole city comes to life again as a
consequence. And this is like the path of the
Buddhas. The Buddhas discover this
ancient path. They come to the goal, which is
Nirvana. They become enlightened.
They become awakened, understanding what life really
is about. And then when they do that, they
teach it to other people. And then the city is like the
sangha. Yeah.
The lay people and the monastics grow, and you expand the
Buddhist community. This is like the city coming
alive and it becomes prosperous and grand like it was in the
past, like it was under a past Buddha.
And I think the reason why. One of the reasons why the
Buddha used this beautiful symbol here of the ancient city
in the jungle, is precisely because what we are doing in
Buddhism, what we're doing on the spiritual path, is the
greatest adventure anyone can ever have.
If you walk through the forest, I don't know what you did.
As a child. I used to hang around, walk
around the forest all the time, climb under rocks, climb rocks,
climb trees. That's kind of what my life was
like. When I was a kid in Norway, and
that's kind of how everyone did it back in those days.
I don't think they live like that anymore.
But that was like a small time adventure and it was fun.
I enjoyed those things. Yeah.
I used to go skiing and do all kind of kind of minor adventures
as they would, I would call it now.
But this is the real deal. So if you want the adventure of
your life, if you want to have something that is truly
meaningful and on top of being the adventure of your life,
overcome suffering, overcome of the all the problems of the
future at the same time, then this is the path for you.
This contains everything. Yeah.
And This is why it is so extraordinarily interesting.
Yeah. OK.
So there you are here little. Talk for this evening, yeah.
All right everyone, so now. Is the chance to ask some
questions or to make comments if you like or we don't take any
complaints but questions or comments I will come.
So please anyone to do it from the hall here.
First of all, if anyone would like to thank you.
Everyone is OK, yeah. No one wants.
To say anything. OK.
Wow. People are really contented.
That's that's wonderful. Yeah.
I don't come here so often. This is your chance.
Going, going, gone. OK.
All right. So let's see what they have from
overseas. Wow.
One of the things I really enjoy about this overseas questions
that people from around the world.
I listen to these things. Yeah.
Isn't that kind of great? We have the ability to share the
Dhamma with the entire world over the Internet.
Just looking at the the people here, one person from Bolivia,
Myanmar, Germany and Singapore, right?
That's pretty cool, right? That's kind of cover is a large,
there's no one from Antarctica, so let's try Antarctica next
time. But we're kind of getting there.
So anyway, so let's see what this has to say.
Dear Ajam Brahmali, in the suitors, when wisdom is
mentioned, they always say they have the wisdom of arising and
passing away. What does it mean?
Does it refer to impermanence or to what?
It does absolutely refer to impermanence.
And so the the wisdom of arising and passing away is actually the
wisdom of stream entry. This is like the profound
understanding of the nature of reality, the first insight into
the nature of reality. And it is not just any kind of
arising and passing away, but is there's a rising and passing
away of everything that pertains to you as a person.
In other words, what we call the five condas, the five
aggregates, the five aspects of personality.
You understand that as arising and passing away.
And arising and passing away doesn't just mean that it is
always changing. Yeah.
It means that it is arising out of nothing and passing into
nothing. Yeah.
Comes into being and then disappears completely.
Yeah. It is also referring to the idea
of rebirth. At rebirth, the five condas, the
five aspects of personality rise.
Yeah. In the particular realm or
particular rebirth. And then when you die, you pass
away from that. So in all of these ways are are
aspects of the idea of rising and passing away.
Udayabaya, it is called Impali. Udaya is arising, not rising,
but up rising. Yeah.
Coming out of nothing. And via is ending, completely
terminating. And it's important to get this
translations right. Some people translate as as
rising and falling, and that gives the wrong idea because a
rising and falling is like a substance rise, like the waves
rising and falling. That's not what it means.
It means up rising and passing away, coming into existence,
disappearing. Yeah, so little things like that
are important in translation. If you want to hear more about
little things like that, come to one of my retreats.
Then we have a question from Myanmar.
Hello, Myanmar. I hope you're doing OK over
there. Dear Adsan.
If emptiness means we just vanish at the end, what is the
point of all this practice? And in life, the point of all
this practice is to end suffering.
Yeah, that's what you want to do.
And as long as you are holding onto anything, you will not end
suffering. That is the whole point.
The dear self that you have, the things that you cling on to, you
think as belonging to you or being you.
All of these things are part of suffering.
So do you want to suffer or do you want to get out of it?
That is really the question. And if you want to get out of
it, you have to go to emptiness. Emptiness is an incredibly
beautiful idea, and the reason we don't see it as beautiful is
because we don't understand it. Yeah.
So be careful. Remember, the whole point of the
Buddhist path, the whole point of any spiritual path that is
worthy of its name, is that it's supposed to be challenging.
Yeah. If it is not challenging, it's
not worth anything. Yeah.
It has to be profound, right? And the Buddha set his teaching
up against all the other teachings in the world and said
my teaching is different because what I teach is non self.
In other words, I teach emptiness.
Yeah, and that is what makes the Buddhist teachings unique in the
world. The idea of emptiness, the idea
of anata or anatman, that is the thing which makes it special.
So be careful. We're judging these things.
Yeah. Stand back, allow these things
to mature in your mind. And one day you may understand
why emptiness, why the ending of everything is the most beautiful
thing that can ever happen in the world.
It's difficult to see because the sense of self stands in the
way. But once you start to get it, it
becomes very, very beautiful. OK, dear Arjan.
Are the suitors. Not just intellectual.
Is it not enough just to ask and listen to your heart and skip
the thinking? Yeah.
No, it is not enough. I'm sorry.
I wish it was that simple. If it was that simple, everyone
would probably be enlightened because everyone has the
opportunity to listen to their heart.
But the heart is not always telling you the truth.
Sometimes your heart lies to you.
Yeah. Sometimes people want to follow
their intuitions. But are your intuitions
accurate? Sometimes they are.
Maybe sometimes they are not. Yeah.
So we need to know that one of the biggest problems in for
human life is the distortions of our perception, the distortions
of our mind. This is called delusion.
It's called moha avija on the Buddhist path.
And those distortions are what kind of perpetuate the
definements of anger and greed and design, all of these kind of
things. Yeah, and because the mind is
distorted, if you follow your heart, very often what you're
following is actually delusion, one of the things your heart
will tell you. Oh, I'm a beautiful person, and
maybe you are beautiful, but you may not be a person.
You see, that is where often you go wrong.
And so this is really profound. So you need someone, the whole
point of a Buddha, that the Buddha has penetrated the
darkness of the world, penetrated the veil of
ignorance, of the veil that veils the world.
You can't see it clearly. Pull back the veil, and then you
can see what's going on. And so you rely on someone to
have done that. That is the purpose of the
Buddha, to start this whole teaching.
Yeah. Yeah.
And that faith and confidence in the Buddha, why that is so
important. And the suit as as we have now,
they are in place of the Buddha because the Buddha is no longer
here to teach us. So we have to deal with the
suitors and hopefully also some of the noble people that may
still be around in the present day here.
OK, Last question for tonight, dear.
Adha in meditation I have at times heard my mind talking to
itself. It is clear to me it is a
separate existence to I. Is this what they mean by
insider? There is a little.
Bit of insight there. Right it is.
What you are seeing is that you are seeing that the
verbalisation of the mind comes in many different ways and
sometimes you can feel that it is the eye that drives the
verbalisation. Sometimes it feels like it is
your ego that does the talking. Yeah, you want to talk.
You put yourself out there in the world.
You want to say I exist, you know, I want to be whatever.
But sometimes your ego fades away and there's still thinking
going on in the mind. The eye is kind of fading away,
but there's still thoughts there.
And those thoughts are not driven by the ego in the same
way, but there are still thoughts.
So there's still a problem. Yeah.
So there is like a degrees of thinking, if you like ego driven
thinking and thinking that is much less ego driven and the
less ego driven thinking is better than the ego driven
thinking. Yeah, but eventually you want to
overcome all thinking, Yeah. And that is where the real
profound meditation becomes possible.
OK everyone, nice to see you all.
I wish you all a pleasant weekend and a nice week ahead.
Let's just pay respect to the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha.