OK, so I guess we can start then.
And tonight I'm going to talk about the exciting topic of
delusion. So are you excited about
delusion? Is that interesting?
It is one of these very fundamental things in the
Buddhist teaching, the idea of delusion.
Delusion means not seeing things according to reality.
It means like being in the dark, Yeah, not knowing where you're
going, kind of fumbling around trying to find your way.
These are all kind of ideas of delusion.
And it's one of the fundamental ideas of Buddhism is to move
from a state of delusion or not seeing things in the right way,
to the idea of awakening. Awakening is precisely the idea
of emerging from delusion, of seeing things according to
reality. So this is really absolutely
fundamental to the Buddhist ideas.
So for this reason, delusion may not sound very promising, but
actually it is a very basic idea, a part of the Buddhist
path. And for example, if you those of
you who know your Buddhist. Teachings a little bit.
You will know about the 12 steps of dependent origination.
Yeah, Petitsa Samapada. Of course, that starts off with
delusion at the very beginning, Avijah, often translated as
ignorance. I think delusion is a far
preferable translation of that. And from that Avijah, from that
delusion, he goes through 12 steps and it ends up with
suffering on the other end. So ultimately, delusion is a
cause of suffering in our lives. Yes.
By removing delusion, by reaching awakening, if like by
turning on the lights, seeing where you are, actually you end
suffering and you attain the highest happiness according to
the Buddhist teachings. So very important.
Yeah. And you, when you look at the
way meditation is described in the suit as by the Buddha, it
talks about this is actually very exciting.
This is really exciting. This is because the way the
Buddha talks about meditation practice, it's all about
happiness. Yeah.
And you may have, even if you meditate just a little bit, like
you did, you did just now, even if you just feel a bit more
relaxed afterwards, What is that relaxation?
It is a degree of happiness, isn't it?
And that degree of happiness already.
But just by reducing suffering, that is also a kind of
happiness. And the whole Buddhist path is
about increasing happiness. Increasing happiness until you
get to the point your mind is so pure that you're actually able
to avoid breakthrough delusion and see things according to
reality. This is the whole purpose,
ultimately, of our meditation practice.
It's a very important aspect of the Buddhist path.
So what does it actually mean? What are we deluded about?
And there's many different angles in which to understand
the idea of delusion. One of the interesting ways is
to understand it, of course, avija.
The opposite of avija is vija. So the opposite of delusion,
vija is inside in what is may not be obvious, but actually it
really means insight. So what is this insight?
And there's three insights in Buddhism that are absolutely
kind of crucial to understanding the nature of reality, and that
is the insight into past lives. Yeah.
The idea of rebirth, the understanding of comma, which is
like the structure or how rebirth actually comes about.
And then lastly is the insight into awakening itself.
Yeah. So these are kind of three
things that are often that I would translate as true insight
on the Buddhist path. Very often when we talk about
insight, we're talking about sitting down in meditation,
becoming peaceful, watching things arising and passing and
all these kind of things. And this is one way of looking
at insider. But if you actually look at the
way the Buddha taught these things, far more powerful are
these fundamental insights into the nature of the world, the
nature of reality, starting with rebirth, understanding the laws
of comma, and then the awakening experience itself.
And to understand how important these things are, it's very nice
to look at some of the similes that the Buddha uses to actually
explain these things, Very beautiful and powerful similes.
This is reason enough to read the word of the Buddha is
actually to see some of the similes that he talks about
because they're so often so powerful and so kind of direct.
You say, wow, now I understand what is going on on.
Yeah, this is really speaks to me in a very powerful way here.
One of those similes that what I says is that it's like turning
on the light. Yeah.
Before you have inside you, it's like you are in darkness.
What happens if you are in darkness?
You want you're walking around. Yeah, trying to kind of.
Feel your way around the room or or the forest or wherever it is
that you are. I'm.
And my darkness is often the forest because I live down in
Serpentine, which is really nice kind of darkness.
By the way, I can really recommend the darkness of the
forest. That itself is good enough
reason to become a monk or a Nan.
Yeah. Just to be in a cutie by
yourself in the darkness, see the stars at night, feeling so,
so beautiful at night. You have no idea what you're
missing out on by living in the city.
So that itself good enough reason to become a monk and Nan.
So afterwards, if that inspires you, we Venable soon you're
here. We'll help you to shave off your
hair. You've got to raise it with your
venal in your hair. And we will sort.
That out afterwards. But seriously, actually, it is
very nice and very inspiring here.
But the problem is that if it is too dark, if the moon is now the
stars aren't and we can't see anything here.
Even though you're trying to feel your head, feel your way
around, sometimes you bump your head against something.
Yeah. And you kind of end up suffering
a lot because you are in darkness.
You don't know which way you're going.
You don't know which way to head.
You don't know where the path is.
You don't know how to get to the toilet block.
Yeah, whatever it is, that is a lot of suffering here.
So then one day somebody turns on the light.
Yeah. You find the light switch and
all turn on the light. Now you can see everything.
No more suffering, no more problems.
An awakening experience is exactly like that.
It's like the turning on the light.
Now you understand the nature of reality.
This is what rebirth is about, Seeing rebirth like turning.
On the light. Wow.
This is what it's like. I had no idea, or maybe I
believed in rebirth. I had some confidence in it, but
I didn't actually know what it really felt like.
This is what it feels like. Wow.
It's astonishing. Yeah.
That this is one of the
similars, the Buddha. The other similar I had to use,
which is very, to my mind, very, very powerful and always caught
my eye when I was reading the Discourses of the Buddha, is
where it says it's like a chick, a chick inside the egg shell.
Yeah. You see yourself as a chick
inside the egg shell. It's a very small world, right?
The egg shell is very tiny there.
All you can see is the wall right there in front of you.
Maybe there's a bit of light coming through the egg shell.
Sometimes you can maybe see a shadow or something.
But it's a very, very tiny world there.
And what I said before awakening, we all like chicks in
an egg shell. We've got a clue what's going on
there. You basically have no idea.
And one day you kind of take your little, you've got to have
long fingernails for this. Yeah.
But it's like the the little chick takes this little kind of
point of his claws. Yeah.
Little little beak that he has, or she has maybe if it's a
female checker. And you break out of that egg
shell and you see. Wow, imagine the difference from
being inside an egg shell to actually breaking out of the egg
and then seeing the world around you.
That is the difference, says the Buddha, between being deluded
and actually seeing things according to reality.
Certainly see the vastness of things, the reality of things.
You get an entirely different view of what is going on.
So this, these are real insights that when the light gets turned
on, these things such as seeing your past lives, understanding
the laws of comma, the driving mechanism behind the idea of
rebirth, and then the awakening experience itself.
This is a kind of fundamental Buddhist insights.
This is one way of looking at the idea of of delusion or lack
of delusion. Yeah, the two things obviously
coming together, insights versus delusion.
There is another way, which is very common in the suit is suit
does, by the way, means the word of the Buddha.
Yeah. The discourses of the Buddha.
I should be very careful with how I, I'm so used to using
Pali. Pali is the ancient.
I even had to explain that. I should explain that as well.
Pali is the ancient language that was used, has been used for
2 1/2 thousand years, pretty much very similar to the
language by the Buddha. The scriptures we have today are
written in the Pali language as a monkey in the monastery.
We kind of use Pali terms all the time.
Yeah. So we kind of after a while you
don't think twice. But yeah, I should really be
careful about that. So anyway, 4 noble truths,
another fundamental way of thinking about either delusion
or non delusion. If you understand the four noble
truths, it means that I mean really through insider you are
not deluded. Don't know what's going on with
the four noble truths. That is the very almost the most
important definition of delusion in the suitors.
Now the first noble truth. OK, just again for noble truths.
Yeah. The noble truth of suffering.
For those of you who are new noble truth of the origin of
suffering here, this is very interesting, isn't it?
Suffering, If you can really understand what suffering is
about, it means also you have a way of getting out of suffering
here. If there's anyone here who
hasn't got any problems in their life, then this talk is not for
you. But if you have even the
slightest problem, this is the way out.
Even the slightest problem, the end of suffering, is possible
here. So the suffering, the origin of
suffering, understand why suffering actually arises.
Third noble truth, the end of suffering.
Here. There is such a thing as the
ending of suffering, the highest happiness.
Yeah, this kind of speaks to us as human beings in a very deep
level. It's possible to read something
called the highest happiness in the world, where all suffering
is eliminated. May be hard to believe, but
according to the Buddha's teachings, it is possible. 4th
Noble truth, the path that leads to the end of suffering here.
Once you understand what these noble truths are about, it's
like, wow, this is really important.
It's so significant actually, it is what life really is all
about. But the first noble truth is a
noble truth of suffering here. Now that noble truth can in turn
be understood in a more kind of comprehensive way here.
And that more deeper way is to understand that when we talk
about suffering or unsatisfactoriness or dukka,
dukka is the Poly word, which means kind of means things.
When we talk about that, we're also talking about anicha, which
is impermanence or unreliability.
And we're also talking about non self at the same time.
These things revolve around each other here.
The reason why the world is problematic is because it is
impermanent. Yeah.
You can't hold on to things. Things always change.
You lose what is yours. You lose kind of your aspects of
your personality. Perhaps you get depressed or I
was happy before. Now I feel, you know, you feel
terrible about that. You lose things that you
consider deeply yours in a certain way here.
So impermanence and reliability very closely related to the idea
of suffering non self also very closely related to that, because
the idea of a self is the idea that we can control the world.
But actually the truth is things are generally speaking out of
control, that we can only do so much to shape our future.
But what we certainly in the external world.
But the good news is we can do a lot to shape our inner world.
And that is where the real spiritual work, of course, lies
place inside of us rather than outsider.
So these are called the three characteristics of existence in
Buddhism yeah things are impermanent, things are
suffering in one way or another. Unsatisfactory things are non
self. 3 characteristics of existence very fundamental to
understanding the Buddhist teachings.
And as long as we we don't understand these things
properly, as long as we as long as we don't understand suffering
fully, as long as we don't understand impermanence fully,
as long as we don't understand non self fully, as long as that
is the case, we are basically deluded.
Very important part of the idea of avidya of delusion.
I'm mentioning these three things in particular because I
want to base some of the things I'm going to say in a second on
these things. So that is delusion.
Yeah. This is the darkness in our
lives, Like from the Buddhist point of view.
So what next? What is the causes of delusion?
How does delusion actually come about?
Yeah. And because once you understand
the causes of delusion, you also understand the ending of
delusion. If the causes are removed, then
of course delusion itself will end.
Yeah. So the this is a very important
part of it if you want to understand how to overcome this
problem of darkness. If you're one of those people
who was keen on breaking out of the chick's shell, are you keen
on that? Would you like to break out of
the shell? It's pretty cool.
Yeah. Suddenly you see the world.
Wow, it's pretty cool. Imagine being a chick and
suddenly seeing the seeing the reality outside.
Now that would be something astonishing here.
So if you are keen on that, I really recommend being keen on
that. So please be keen on that if you
are. You want to find the causes of
delusion. What are the causes of delusion?
And the Buddha says in the suitors that actually this is
the bad news. There is no real first cause of
delusion. Delusion is a self perpetuating
force that keeps going onwards and onwards and onwards, always
kind of bringing itself along. You can't really break out of
the delusion very easily because it perpetuates itself.
And so it is in the past. If you go back into the past and
like, let's say that you're able to remember your past lives,
there is no first point of delusion.
There is no ultimate cause why delusion came into existence in
the 1st place. And that's kind of scary, isn't
it? If you accept that from the
Buddha and you think that the Buddha might be right about
that, it's kind of scary here. There is no kind of ultimate
cause of these things. It means that you will keep on
being deluded into the future. Except.
Except for one thing. Yeah.
And that is you can find the circuit breaker.
The circuit breaker. I can turn this thing off and
make you see things in a different way here.
What is that circuit breaker here?
That circuit breaker is the teaching of the Buddha.
This is why the Buddha calls himself the eye of the world,
the one who sees 1st. And when somebody has seen, he
sees for the rest of the world. He can pass on that insight onto
the rest of humanity and allow us to to make that breakthrough,
to find the end of that delusion which has always been there.
So This is why the teaching of the Buddha are so important.
This is why the suit I say that what the Buddha say is that the
para togosa. Yeah, I'd like to use a few
party terms because it kind of sounds impressive.
When I say para togosa, you think, wow, what is this?
Patagosa means the voice of another.
Yeah. So the voice of another is so
important because without that we are trapped into the self
perpetuating cycle. Once one person has been able to
breakthrough, it enables the rest of us, also gives the rest
of us also that chance to breakthrough.
So This is why it is so important.
But before I go on about that, I just want to say this very
briefly about this idea that delusion is self perpetuating.
The Buddha says if you go into the past, there is no first
point of delusion. Yeah, and this is very similar
to saying that there is no first point of existence because
existence and delusion must always go together.
As long as you exist, there will be delusion.
Yeah. It's not the way of saying that.
Is that to say that the universe has always been there.
You go back, the universe was always there.
There was no first point in the universe.
Yeah. Or rather the.
But that doesn't actually say what he says.
To be more precise, he says there is no discoverable first
point of these things, which actually is a big difference.
I'm saying that there is no first point.
And what, why is this so interesting?
And the way, the reason why this is so interesting to me, and I
think I mentioned this here before, is that the most
philosophies, most religions, most kind of ideas, even science
in the present day, it starts, they all start off with the
first 'cause, the first 'cause that either God created the
universe or in science, the first 'cause is The Big Bang.
Yeah. And it's kind of the interesting
saying, I've read scientists say this somewhere that yeah, we can
explain everything. Yeah.
Once we're given The Big Bang, we can explain everything
afterwards. So all you have to do is give us
1 miracle, and then we can explain everything else.
This was like a scientist saying that taking kind of the Mickey
out of his own science, I think. Yeah, but there's something true
about that. They cannot explain the
beginning. Yeah.
And then comes the Buddha's teaching here and the Buddha's
teaching. The Buddha actually says that
there is no beginning here. If you go back, you always find
another cause before the previous cause.
Yeah. And in one way, I find that so
much more likely. It seems so much more a
reasonable and rational way of looking at the universe that
there always is another first 'cause before the previous one
there is no first beginning. Or rather you can't find the
first beginning, it always goes back to something else.
To me that is a very sensible approach to reality and I I must
personally find that far better explanation of the universe that
I can actually find anywhere else.
So anyway, that's just the kind of a little bit of a side side
issue. But the other thing which they
would have says there, which also is very interesting, he
doesn't actually say that there is no first 'cause he says there
is no discoverable first 'cause that is also quite different.
And the distinction between those two things is that if you
say that there is no first cause, of course that is
something that you can never actually see for yourself.
Yeah. You can never go back infinitely
into the past and say that there is no first course.
All you can ever say is that I gone back as far as I think it's
possible to go, or I've gone back as far as I can go.
Yeah, within the limits of time or whatever.
I haven't found the first 'cause there is no discoverable first,
'cause the Buddha's teachings are basically pragmatic.
They're based on what can be observed.
They're not based on speculation about reality.
And this is another thing that I love about these teachings of
the Buddha. They tend to be very pragmatic,
based on observable principles rather than speculation.
Actually, I would say there is no real speculation in the
earliest part of the Buddhist teachings.
So, so just as a side issue, you have just to kind of have a look
at what it means that there is no beginning with these things.
So it is problematic. Delusion is self perpetuating.
So what can we do then, and what we can do?
Would I say that even though there is no first point of
delusion, even though there is no absolute cause for delusion,
he says there is still a nutriment for delusion, and a
nutriment is something that feeds something else.
Yeah. If you give a plant a nutriment,
the plant grows. So there is a nutriment to
delusion, and the nutriment are those things that make delusion
more powerful. Or if you withdraw the nutriment
from delusion, they actually take away the power of delusion
and decrease it. So delusion can be seen as a
kind of this curve. Yeah, that goes up and down.
Sometimes you're really deluded, Sometimes you're not really
deluded at all. So it kind of varies.
It varies depending on the nutriment that feeds this.
So if you don't want to be deluded, if you want to reduce
your delusion in daily life and all these kind of things, what
you have to do is to take away the nutriment that feeds our
misapprehension of the world, that feeds the delusion of
things. So what is this nutriment of
delusion? And the answer is the nutriment
of delusion are the five hindrances.
Yeah. If you've been around the
Buddhist scene for a while, you will know about the 500 and says
these are the things we talk about all the time in meditation
practice. Yeah.
Sensual desire, ill will, tiredness and lethargy,
restlessness and remorse. And lastly, doubt.
Yeah. So these definements of the
mind, these are the things that actually make delusion powerful
in in our lives. So if you are able to reduce the
five hindrances, and so much of the path is precisely about
reducing the five hindrances, if we can reduce those, then
delusion also subsides. Why is it that the hindrances
feed delusion? How does this actually work?
And it's very, actually very easy to understand that.
Yeah. When you are angry, do you
really know what you're doing when you're angry?
Think about a time when you're angry.
Very often what happens when you're angry?
Anger is a very compelling force inside of us.
Yeah. Once you are angry, you feel
like you have to do something. It's as if you have to act on
that anger. But often when you act on the
anger, often you feel afterwards a sense of remorse.
I shouldn't have done that. Yeah.
This very powerful compulsive force actually forces you to do
things that ultimately, you know, you shouldn't have done.
So while you are under the sway of anger, you are deluded
because when your mind is clear afterwards, you know it was
wrong here. So you can see straight away
that anger is actually a power of delusion, is a delusive force
that kind of compels us to do things that we actually should
know we shouldn't be doing it. Yeah.
So anger increases delusion. Whenever you feel a bit of ill
will, a bit of negativity, be very careful because that is
when you are under the sway of these very compulsive force that
drive us to do things that are very unfortunate.
Often the desire is very similar.
Yeah. When you have very powerful
desires, yeah, you are. Whatever it is for food or for
whatever it is you have, very often it's very hard to resist
the desire. Even though you know you
shouldn't be doing something, you do it because the desire is
this delusive force that drives, that distorts reality, that
tells you you should be doing something here.
You should be do. You should do something that you
know, with your better self. You shouldn't really be doing
it. Yeah, it kind of makes sense.
Yeah. When you think about it,
Rational. It's actually this so obvious.
Of course, the same thing if you are confused.
Yeah. If you are restless, if you have
lots of doubt, it's very hard to see things clearly.
You are stuck. You know that you actually are
deluded to some extent at that particular point.
And this is so. These are the forces that Dr.
delusion inside of us make delusion worse and make the
whole thing kind of not work out properly here.
So one of the consequences of this, one of the first things
for lessons for me from this is to I always try to remind myself
if I feel a bit of ill will negativity towards somebody, I
always tell myself now is the wrong time to act.
Yeah, don't talk now, don't do anything because whatever's
going to come out of your mouth is may very well not be very
nice. So I often when that happens, I
try to either withdraw or I try not to communicate so much.
Yeah. So if you if you ever see me
angry, yeah, tell me, OK, Please don't talk now, as I reminded,
because now is not the right time for you to to talk.
Yeah. And I think, well, OK, maybe
you're right about that. So I've kind of withdrawn into
my room and kind of lie down and kind of take a break and a cup
of tea. And I come out when I feel
better afterwards. And that is a far better way to
react. Yeah.
Whenever you want to make a decision in life, whenever you
want to decide on especially kind of big things, but even
minor matters, never make a decision if you have defilements
in your mind because those decisions are always going to
end up being stupid. If I'm in the monastery and I'm
really fed up with my fellow monks, I'm never fed up
preventable senior because it's such a nice monkey.
But if I'm ever fed up with my fellow monks in the monastery
here, then. And I say, yeah, now is the time
to leave. I had enough of this monastery.
I'm going to move to Mars. Yeah, Mars is much better than
this blooming monastery here, but it's pretty hard to get to
Mars. So, you know, you know, straight
away, you know, you're angry because your thoughts are
completely unrealistic. But then I I remind myself that
actually this is not the right time to make a matter, to make a
decision about going to Mars or not.
Yeah. First of all, you have to allow
this kind of the, the kind of the, the Rockets to get as far
as Mars before you can make that kind of decision.
Now is not the right time. So chill, relax, take it easy.
And then when I take it easy, when I go back to my QT, I relax
my mind, feel clear, feels clear again.
And I ask myself, should I leave this monastery here?
Yeah, wherever that might be, the answer is always of course
not. Why not?
Because if I look at my monastic life in this monastery, I've
been living at Bodhinana Monastery for almost 24 years.
Yeah, it's a long time. But when I look at my time in
that monastery, all I see is a gradual movement in the right
direction, a gradual movement away from negative states of
mind towards more positive states of mind.
And when I see that, I think I'm actually fulfilling the very
purpose of monastic life. Why on earth would I want to go
somewhere else? So once your mind is clear, once
you know what you're doing. Yeah, Yeah.
Once you sit back and you're relaxed and you see what's going
on, that is the right time to make decisions in your life
because then you know what you're doing.
You're not swayed by the defilements.
You can trust your intuition. People often ask, can I make,
you know, make, can I make decisions based on intuition or
should it be logical? Doesn't really matter.
What matters is that your mind is free of definements.
If your mind is free of definements, your intuition will
be pretty accurate. Your logic also pretty accurate.
If your mind has definements, both your logic and your
intuition will be swayed by the definements.
So neither of them will actually work.
Yeah. So that is a it's a very good
advice just how to make decisions in life.
But coming back to these five hindrances, how, if they are so
important, Yeah, and they are the forces that actually
increase delusion in our mind, how can we get rid of the five
hindrances? Yeah.
And this is what the whole Buddhist path is about.
It's all about how to get rid of the five hindrances of the mind.
Yeah. And you do that by, first of
all, being kind. Yeah.
You come to the Buddhist society.
I hope it makes you kinder to come to the Buddhist society.
I hope it doesn't make you more kind of angry and negative.
And I, I certainly feel, I always feel very happy when I
come here. I feel very happy because I know
that the people around me are good people.
I feel very blessed to be part of a monastery and a community
where in general people are really good and wholesome.
It's a wonderful thing to be part of that.
And please, I hope you can also feel the same thing here.
So by doing that, by thinking in this way, by having a sense of
kindness for the world around us, by acting in good ways, by
avoiding the bad ways, this actually just by being virtuous,
just by being moral, just by being kind, you're already
reducing the defilements in your mind.
The five hindrances are already going down.
Yeah, that's really all we have to do.
And then you come here, you do a bit of meditation practice to
calm yourself down. Maybe one day you come to our
wonderful meditation center called Jana, the Grove.
Yeah, I think it's one of the best meditation centres in the
world. It happens to be right here in
Perth. If you don't go there, you're
missing out one of the best meditation centres in the world.
So please check it out. One of these days they come for
a weekend retreat and 9 the retreat, whatever it is.
And then you are applying these teachings in such a way that you
are reducing these things that are called the five entrances.
That is what the Buddhist teaching is all about.
And as you do that, clarity starts to arise.
Delusion is gradually, gradually diminishing, and clarity comes
in its place. Yeah.
And you can feel that happening in your life.
It's such a wonderful feeling when that happens.
Day by day, year by year, clarity is increasing here.
That is my experience. And I can guarantee you if you
practice well, it will be your experience as well here.
And then delusion is going down. One day when you get into a
really deep state of meditation, the defilements will be
completely gone, no more 5 hindrances.
And that is when delusion has no nutriment anymore.
When delusion has no nutriment, it is very weak, and that is why
at that particular point is the point when delusion can be
overthrown and true insight is possible.
It has no supports anymore. So what you need then is this
little thing called little spark, this para togosa, the
voice of another, which is the word of the Buddha, that little
spark. Turn your mind in in the right
direction and then delusion can be gone once and for all.
This is how the causes of delusion, yeah, how these things
actually function, how they work together here.
But there is another aspect of this and I also want to mention
briefly here, and that is the aspect how delusion actually
works in our lives, why it is a problem, why it leads to
suffering, how it actually functions.
I mentioned before that delusion stands at the very basis of
dependent origination. Yeah, Vija is is the first
factor of dependent origination. I'm going to talk a bit about
dependent origination. Hope you are ready for that.
If you don't understand what I'm saying, I think you will
actually. So I'm not going to start by
saying that because it's kind of being a bit negative, but
dependent relation is very interesting teaching of the
Buddha and very profound. And it's kind of interesting to
get our heads a little bit around what it means.
So it starts off with avija, the second fact, in other words,
delusion. Yeah, the second factor,
dependent origination, is called sankara in Pali.
Sankara means activities. It means that things we do in
life, and specifically it means intentional activities.
Yeah, the things that we do, how we live our lives, all the
things we do during our daily life.
And dependent origination says that from delusion comes
activities. Yeah, it may not be very obvious
why that is the case. If the Buddha says that maybe
you cannot shrug your shoulders, Maybe I I don't know.
So what's going on here? What is the connection between
delusion and activities, specifically intentional
activities? I find this really fascinating
and very interesting myself. I find these little
technicalities and things like dependent origination very
practical, very useful, and very interesting because it is a core
Buddhist way of understanding the world.
So the connection here is that, remember Avijah, delusion, when
it come back to the basic thing, 3 characteristics of existence.
Yeah, one of them is the characteristic of suffering
here. The problem with delusion is
that we don't understand that. So we think that things that are
suffering in the world, we think that they're actually happiness.
And we think that things in the world that actually are
happiness, we think that they are suffering.
We don't understand where true happiness is to be found.
We don't understand the things that are really problematic in
the world. And because we don't understand
that what we do, we pursue things that in the end actually
are problematic rather than pursuing those things that are
real happiness. Yeah, we don't understand true
happiness, and I'm sure you will know a little bit about that
already. Yeah, sometimes you pursue
things, it doesn't really make you all that happy.
And that's why you come here to the Buddhist society, hopefully
to find something, you know, a little bit more meaningful in
life. That's why I am here.
And I hope you're here too, because this is what kind of
drives me. To me, this is what lives gives
my life the utmost meaning. The fact that I'm a Buddhist
monk here. So why?
So what happens here is that you think that you know what
happiness is. And because you think you know
what happiness is, even though it isn't actually the case, you
go into the world and you start acting to create that happiness.
And that is the intentional activities.
Yeah. Where do you, where do people
find think that happiness is to be found?
People think that happiness is to be found in possessions.
Yeah, you got to have enough possessions.
And that's true, of course, but I think generally speaking,
people think that the more possessions you have, the more
happy you will be here. People think that happiness lies
in relationships. People think that happiness lies
in status. Yes, social status.
People think that happiness lies in promotion, in the kind of in
your work, whatever that is. Yeah, another kind of status
really here. So we think happiness lies in
all of this worldly things around us.
That is where we assume happiness lies.
So because of that, we go out and we try to do those things.
We work really hard. We kind of pursue possible
partners in life. Yeah, either a girlfriend or a
boyfriend or a man or woman who will be a suitable partner.
We pursue all of these things that we think are going to give
us happiness. And that is what is Sankara's
intentional formation. Intentional activities are all
about in that in this pursuit of the worst things of the world,
the worldly things. As we do that, sometimes we do
good actions, sometimes we do bad actions.
Yeah. If we really think that our
happiness depends on kind of having the right person as our
partner, maybe we will do things to kind of get other, you know,
rivals out of the way here, which may be bad actions.
Yeah, because that is where happiness is.
Of course, then doing some bad things is OK because we all want
to move towards happiness. And this is how we then end up
in the pursuit of worldly things.
We end up doing good things and we also end up doing bad things.
Yeah, this is how it happens because our goal is in the wrong
place. Our goal is in securing worldly
happiness. So depending on how many of the
good things you do, depending on how many of the bad things you
do, you will feel accordingly. If you do a lot of bad things
because you have no spiritual life, you have no understanding
of the importance of morality, you will feel bad about
yourself. And because you feel bad about
yourself, your consciousness, your mind, your feelings will be
dragged down and you will feel dark and negative and hopeless
about yourself. Insider Yeah.
Just think about a time when you have done something bad towards
somebody. I'm sure nobody here is
absolutely beyond doing anything bad.
If you are, I would like to meet you afterwards.
So please come up there because those people are rare, right?
Well, that would be really cool to meet somebody.
Absolutely nothing bad. But think about it, you don't
know if you have done something wasn't quite right.
How do you feel about that? And the answer is very obvious,
at least to me. I know from my own life I feel a
bit rotten about myself. Oh, I shouldn't have done that.
That was a bad thing to do. These days I don't do that many
bad things anymore. Hope anyway, I that's, that's
what it feels like. So usually I don't have all that
much remorse about things, but occasionally bad things happen
because just the conditioning is so strong.
The more of these bad things you do, the more you drag yourself
down. You drag down your
consciousness, your mind, and you feel negative about
yourself. If, on the other hand, you do
good things, you do very few bad things, and you are basically a
kind, generous, caring person in this world, how do you feel
about yourself when you are kind towards others?
I don't know. I to me it is very obvious that
when I am kind, I feel good about myself.
Afterwards I feel, yeah, I did something good.
I feel kind of, you know, it's not a kind of egotistical thing.
It's just an acknowledgement that you know that you're living
your life well. And I think it's impossible not
to feel reasonably good about. Actually, it is impossible,
according to the Buddha, to feel reasonably good about yourself
when you live well. Yes.
The more of these good things you do, the more you live your
life well, the more caring, kind, compassionate you are as a
person. And the less of the bad things
you do, the more you're brightening up your mind, making
your mind joyous, happy, and light, creating happiness for
yourself. You're lifting up your
consciousness. If you do mostly bad things,
you're dragging your consciousness down.
If you do a mix of both, you're kind of staying roughly even.
Yeah. This is the third link of
dependent origination. From intentional activities
comes consciousness, Vinayana. Our mind, our consciousness is
affected by how what we act, how we live our life.
Yeah, it's very interesting. And I would recommend you not to
just to take this as a matter of faith, because the Buddha says
so or because I say so or whatever.
Take feel it in your own life. These things actually are
experientially possible to ascertain for yourself, to feel
it in your own life. The connection between your
intentional activities and how you feel about yourself, your
consciousness, your mind and all of these kind of things.
It's a very powerful thing that you start to see there.
So what happens then? What happens if we start to have
a different outlook in life? If we start to see that actually
these sensual pleasures, yes, there is some degree of
happiness there, but actually the being kind, being
compassionate, there is a far greater happiness to be had from
that because that is a true inner happiness.
All these other things are external things that come and
go. You can't really rely on them
anyway. The inner happiness is something
you can rely on there. So what happens then is that
your delusion is decreasing here.
You're starting to see things more according to reality here.
As a consequence, you don't pursue all those worldly aims so
much anymore. You start to realise how I live
my life is far more important than what I have or what kind of
success I have here. So because of that, that balance
between good and bad acts changes, yeah.
You do more of the good stuff, you do less of the bad stuff.
And as a consequence, you're brightening up your mind, making
your life, your life more meaningful and worthwhile, and
basically making your life and also the life of people around
you far better. As a consequence, delusion is
going down, happiness is going up.
And sure, you can start to see the mechanism here, here, but
one of the most interesting things about this is one of the
things that you start to realise when you come here to the Maloca
Centre. Yeah, you do a bit of meditation
on Friday night or on Saturday or whenever it is, and you start
to feel peaceful there. What does it feel like when
there's less activity going on in your mind?
What does it feel like to be more peaceful?
And in my experience, it feels really good.
I was going to say some other words, but it feels really good.
Yeah, it feels so nice to be peaceful here.
It feels so nice when the mind starts to calm down.
It feels so nice when the activities get less.
So what you are seeing there is that the second factor of
dependent origination, which are the intentional activities.
Actually, it's suffering here the less you have of those
activities. When you sit down, you close
your eyes, you watch the breath, you just feel so, oh, this is so
nice to sit here and just relax on Friday night.
The more you see that, the more you understand that the very
second factor, dependent origination, all these
intentional activities that we have, actually that is a
problem. Yeah.
That itself, all the activities is a problem.
So once you see that, you realise that actually allow all
of those activities to fade away in meditation.
The deeper the meditation is, the less activities there are,
the happier you are as a consequence.
And now you can start to see another aspect of dependent
origination, whereby the second factor, you allow it gradually
to die out. Yeah.
And the more it dies out, the more the less actually there is
of the less the whole sequence of dependent origination which
comes after that. That too starts to die out as a
consequence until eventually you come to a point where you stop
doing any activities at all. Through inside, through your
meditation practice, you come to that point.
This is called OK ready for this?
This is called Saba sankara samata.
OK, You don't have to remember that.
That's OK. Something means that the calming
down of all intentional activities, that's what it
means. And that is the goal of the
Buddhist path. That is nirbana itself, that is
awakening itself. Yeah.
Delusion has completely gone. You understand where real
happiness is to be found. You pursue that by action or by
pursuing it at all, by allowing everything to die down.
And eventually you find that deeper sense of happiness
through your meditation practice.
So this is how this happens, through a misunderstanding of
where happiness is to be found. We pursue those things not
worthy or pursuit, and we don't pursue those things that
actually are worthy of being pursued.
This is one way of looking at this.
There are many other ways. Another nice way of looking at
this. Yeah, is I apologise if this is
getting a bit kind of heavy, but this is just the way I talk
sometimes. I, I, but I really apologise,
but so another way of looking at this is remember I said the
three characteristics. Yeah, 1 The characteristic is
the characteristic of non self. Yeah.
But of course the reality is that we have a sense of self.
So the reality is non self, but we have a sense of self.
There is a clash, again, between reality and how we actually look
at things. What that means, because we have
a sense of self, it means that we have a sense of agency.
We have a feeling that we can actually influence outcomes in
the world. Not only can we influence
outcomes, but we actually identify with the agent.
Yeah. People, when you go into the
world, you act. You feel alive precisely because
you're acting. You are the agent in the world,
and this is your sense of identity here.
We all have a little bit of that, I'm sure.
I'm sure you can relate to what I'm talking about being the
agent. Now I'm getting things done.
And you feel alive because of that.
To be is to do. Yeah.
And to do is to be. Once you do.
To do is to be. Once you do.
You feel that you exist as a consequence.
So because of this, because we feel that we have capacity, we
have the agency in the world that encourages us to go out and
try to create happiness for ourselves, but actually, the
world is far less amenable to control than we think it is.
The world often goes against our wishes.
Yeah, that is why relationships break up.
That is why we have this terrible Bush fires here in WA
burned down our whole village. That's why death comes when it
when you least want it. That is why all of these
problems in the world happen all the time, because it is actually
not within our control. Yeah.
So again, you can see two different things here.
You start pursuing things because you feel like the agent,
because you have agency, when in fact actually that is in large
part a delusion. So once you understand the idea
of non self, once you overturn the basic delusion at the base
of dependent origination, a lot of that is taken away here.
You no longer identify with being the doer because you no
longer identify with being the doer.
You don't enjoy the act of doing anymore because you don't enjoy
the act of doing. And because you know you can't
create happiness that way anyway, again, you stop the
intentional activities. Yeah, the intentional activities
die down. And because the intentional
activities die down again, the whole sequence of dependent
origination, which leads to suffering, all that dies down to
her. And as a consequence you
experience more and more happiness.
This is the outcome of this whole thing here.
So my point here is simply to make the point that as long as
we have delusion in our life, as long as we look for happiness in
the wrong place, as long as we think that we are agents who
have power to actually change the world and also we identify
with that agency, we are bound to make mistakes.
And we are in our own life right here, right now, perpetuating
suffering in our own life and also suffering down, down the
line in future lives at the same time.
So that is a very brief idea of how dependent origination, the
very, the first three factors very briefly explained how they
work on the path. Just to kind of bring that in, I
think, I think it's very fascinating.
I like to bring in some of the deeper aspects of Buddhism, even
on this Friday night talks. Yeah, I think it's actually very
useful to understand some of these aspects, because when you
understand these things, it actually leads, I think, to
create a confidence in these very powerful teachings of the
Buddha. So just to summarise very
briefly what this talk is all about.
It is about delusion being the main problem in life.
This is what we're trying to overcome.
If you want to overcome delusion, the Noble Eightfold
Path, the Buddhist practice, is the way to overcome that.
What is the Buddhist practice? One way of summarising the
Buddhist practice, you can summarise it in one word, and
that is kindness. Be kind, live well.
And as you do, that delusion declines until one day.
Yeah, You take your little claws.
You take your little beak, The little claws in the beak.
This is kind of a metaphor for the lack of the hindrance
scissor. It's a kind of strange metaphor.
But anyway, that's what it's a metaphor for.
You kind of claw. Get out of the egg.
Yeah, You can make a little hole in the egg.
RIP open the egg shell. And wow, Now you see the world
for what it actually is for the first time.
And that is what you have waiting for you down the line if
you keep on practicing this path there.
OK, that is all for tonight. OK, So now is your chance to ask
questions to. If you are confused, that's OK.
It's perfectly acceptable. If you're not confused, that's
also OK. So if you have any comments or
questions, this is the right time.
Everybody wait. Thank you very much.
No comments. Whoa, OK.
Oh, over here. This will come over here.
Yeah. So when you said that
activities, ceasing activities means that we'll suffer less, is
that to do with the idea that just being calm or not pursuing
these things are going to? So yeah, I'm just confused about
the whole activities thing. Does that mean we should try and
be more like less reactive and just not do as much and be like
just have a simpler existence? Yeah, that's, that's one way of,
of thinking about that. But I what I was really
referring to was more like meditation experiences.
And when you get into a deep state of meditation, what
happens? The mind gets completely
unified. There's no movement in the mind
anymore. There's no activity going on
there. And you realize for the first
time in another, actually no activity.
It's just so amazingly fantastic.
It feels, you know, the highest bliss you can possibly have is
when the mind becomes absolutely still.
So that's what I meant by that. But you're right, you can also
bring it into your ordinary life.
And, you know, one of the ways of, of doing that, as you say,
is trying to flow through life rather than react to things all
the time. Try to go with the flow.
Yeah. When I'm trying to kind of
always control things and trying to kind of make things, the more
you're trying to control things in life, the more problems
you're going to have, the more you're able to go with the flow.
It means that you realise that the world is, is always like
this. Yeah.
And the more you're able to go with the kind of changeability
of the world, the less resistance that is inside of
you, the easier time you're going to have it.
So you're right about that as well.
Yeah, yeah. OK.
Anyone else, Everyone else happy here?
Yeah, here. Great.
OK, last chance. OK, look, OK, didn't take it.
Sorry. That's so a couple of questions
from overseas. First one is from Volfram in
Germany. Can I say that delusion is all
that disturbs the peace? How can I be sure that my inside
is also not delusion? Do I feel the difference between
delusion and inside? OK, very good questions.
Does delusion disturb the peace? Yes, it disturbs the peace.
Because delusion, right, is the craving.
It is the ill will. And of course, ill will and
craving by the very nature disturb the peace.
Craving is precisely about not being content in the present
moment, thinking about the future.
Ill will is about thinking about things that may have happened in
the past. So indeed that's certainly
disturb of the peace. But even when you become very
peaceful, even if you go into a state of full samadhi, yeah,
full meditation, there is still an underlying delusion left at
that particular point. And that is the delusion that
you can overthrow through insight.
So you make your mind peaceful as far as you possibly can, then
inside becomes possible from that, and then the delusion will
become completely gone. And that's why once you become
fully awakened, you have a very high degree of peace as a
consequence. How can I be sure that my
insight is not delusion? Well, delusion comes, as I was
trying to say, in a large number of degrees.
Yeah, you have the most kind of really powerful delusion of very
strong anger or very strong ill will or being very confused or
whatever, being in darkness and all these kind of things.
Very strong delusion. But then you gain a little bit
of insight, and it may be your insight.
Is that OK? This anger is no good.
Let me try to have less anger. Or you have some kind of small
insight in your daily life about where you seek your happiness or
whatever it is that is less delusion than the previous
delusion. Yeah, it doesn't mean that you
are entirely free of delusion, but it means that you have the
less delusion than you had before here.
In this way, you gradually reduce your delusion until one
day you are completely free of it.
But to actually know whether you are completely free or delusion,
that is the hard one. And many people will tend to
overestimate themselves. Yeah, I think.
Yeah, well, I'm an arrow hunter. Yeah.
You kind of, you go on the Internet and you see kind of
these people claim to be fully enlightened.
Yeah. My, my name is John.
I'm an arrow hunt. Yeah, kind of on the website.
And straight away you think, well, maybe not.
Yeah, there's something slightly fishy about this.
So sometimes people overestimate themselves.
The hard part is actually to know at what point you are
entirely free of delusion. And one of the ways of knowing
that is that you know that actually you have ended rebirth.
Yeah, you actually know that as a fact that you've ended
rebirth. You may wonder how that is
possible, but that is actually one of the consequences of being
a fully awakened being. Yeah.
Do I feel the difference between delusion and insight?
Yes. You feel very easy to feel the
difference if you have a real insight.
Insight has consequences. One of the main consequences of
insight is that you feel at peace.
Why? Because insight is precisely
insight into the three characteristics of suffering.
Yeah, if you understand if you have an insight into suffering,
it means you let go of that. When you let go of something,
you feel more peaceful as a consequence.
If you have an insight that you know this particular pursuit,
trying to kind of climb the corporate ladder or whatever,
suddenly one day this is crazy, what am I doing this for?
Suddenly you will feel more peaceful as a consequence
because some of that craving and attachment will die down there.
So that's how you recognise insight always comes with a
sense of peace, always comes with a sense of calm delusion
can is not always restless, but at the very least it is a bit
confused and a little bit problematic in other ways.
OK, this is from Anjeev in India.
Hello Anjeev, what do you advise to someone who understands
delusion in theory but is still addicted to sensual pleasures?
OK, so, so theory is a good start.
Yeah. So be happy that you got the
theory right. So you should be feel really
happy with yourself and kind of give yourself a pat on the back.
I got the theory right. Continue reading The Suitors of
the Buddha as you do that, that addiction.
Everyone is addicted to sensual pleasures to some extent, except
if you have gone a long, long, long way on the Buddhist path.
Yeah. So first of all, don't worry too
much about it. But as you start, the more you
read The Suitors of the Buddha, the more you understand what he
was we're talking about, the more clear it will be to you why
this is problematic. And gradually, as you practice
the Buddhist path, as you practice kindness, it's possible
to indulge in sensual players and be kind at the same time.
Yeah, as you practice kindness, your source of happiness comes
from somewhere else. It comes from the inner
contentment, the inner happiness.
As your source of happiness comes from somewhere else, your
addiction to sensual pleasures will decline.
We get into a really deep state of meditation.
Essential pleasures will be completely gone because you're
getting your happiness somewhere completely different.
But in the meantime, read the word of the Buddha.
Try to understand the dangers that he talked about in sensual
pleasures. I believe I have talked about
the dangers of sensual pleasures here before.
I can't remember what I talked about anymore now, but I think I
have, and maybe I will give another talk about that in the
future. It's very interesting actually
what Buddha has to say about these things.
So maybe I will do that, Anjir, and maybe stay tuned in one of
these days and get another talk on the dangerous essential
pleasures. In the meantime, good luck.
Remember, come back to the word of the Buddha again and again
and again. As you do that, your view, your
delusion gradually gets straightened out and then you
are in business, as I say here. OK, very good everyone.
So let's just pay respect the Buddha Masanga.
None.