Some people must have got very bored. Can you hear me in the back? No. Well, come in front. There’s room here.
Come. The title of the talk tonight is mind is master. It’s actually the very first verse of the dhammapada collection of verses that the Buddha spoke at various times. These are not spoken all at the same time. There are over three hundred of them.
Mind is master. All things arise from mind. If we have unwholesome thoughts in the mind, they will follow us like the wheel follows the hoof of the oxen. You know, the ox carts that they used to have in the time of the Buddha. If we think with a wholesome mind, happiness will follow us like our own shadow.
Now with mind being explained in such a way, it behooves us to make sure that we take that seriously. It’s only for own benefit. It’s for nobody else’s benefit. It’s primarily first for ourselves. That other people will eventually benefit from that too is another aspect of it.
All of us are able and interested in looking after our bodies. We never fail. Three meals a day, maybe four. The good food that we can afford, maybe health food from the health food shop, maybe our own food from the garden, but we make sure it’s good and that it’s nourishing. We wash.
We clean ourselves up. We have at least one shower a day. I have to admit in this weather, I had already three, but usually, we might have one. We have clean clothing. We wash our clothes.
We have a roof over our heads where we are protected from the weather. We have a comfortable chairs and a comfortable bed in which to go to sleep. And we also exercise the body at least minimally, at least walk, maybe from here to the car, but at least we do walk. Otherwise, the body is gonna completely deteriorate. And when it’s sick, we make sure we get the appropriate medicine, whatever kind of medicine we believe in, whether it’s allopathic or homeopathic or whatever we believe in.
And we go out to make money in order to buy the necessary things that this body needs, a car, a house, a refrigerator, and all the rest of the paraphernalia that we find in every house. If we didn’t do that, if we didn’t look after our body in this way, give it medicine, give it food, give it a rest at night, give it some exercise, it would deteriorate in no time, and it would probably die on us. It would be great foolishness. That’s why we’re always doing that. And we’re very keen on doing it because it also spells survival.
But survival is already a foregone conclusion that it is going to happen. Not that we shouldn’t look after our bodies, of course we should, but we need to take into consideration that we certainly aren’t only the body. And nobody believes that we’re only the body. But most people take a lot of time, a lot of care, a lot of energy, a lot of money to look after the body. If you walk into any chemist shop, you can see how much money and how much care we take in order to look after the body.
And there’s only one chemist shop. Now just imagine for a moment how many there are in the world or how many chemist shops are in Adelaide. The mind needs exactly the same treatment that the body gets, but it is more important that the mind gets it too. And yet, we don’t have that kind of attitude usually. The first thing that the mind needs is it needs a rest.
Just like the body gets a rest at night, and then the next morning, it has a renewed energy and can do a lot of things again. The mind needs the same. But the mind thinks all day long and dreams all night long. It doesn’t get the rest that the body gets. The only way it can ever get a rest is if we learn to meditate properly.
Properly. I will detail that in a moment. It also needs a wash. Now it’s much easier to use soap and water on the body. But what do we actually clean up?
All we clean up is one eighth of an inch of skin. Nobody believes that we’re just the skin, although we are very interested in skin. Right color, no wrinkles, no blemishes, very important. But yet, nobody really believes that we’re only skin. I like to call skin the gift wrapping.
It’s wrapped around all the bits and pieces that are inside, and if we didn’t have it, we’d look a bit funny, but at least we have that to keep it all together. That’s all we ever wash, beside the hair, and yet the mind needs that even worse. It would be much better to have a dirty skin and a clean mind than vice versa. Again, this is a purification aspect, only possible if we pay good attention to the mind. The other thing that the mind gets is a home when we meditate.
Now the body has this roof over its head. It has the shelter from the vicissitudes of the climate so that we don’t have to sit outside in the rain or the heat or the wind or the hail, but we can come in here and feel at ease. But the body might be completely at ease. Is the mind completely at ease? It might still be checking up all the things it did in the office during the day.
It might still be planning what it’s gonna do tomorrow. It might still be worrying about old problems or making up new ones. So it needs a home to go to. Again, only in meditation. The exercise that the body has to have so that it doesn’t atrophy, it’s exactly the same for the mind.
It needs to learn to have muscles, the muscles of the mind which gives it power, again, only through meditation. Now through the meditation practice, the first thing that we can actually do is getting some muscles into the mind. Namely, make it obey. If we want to go on a marathon run and haven’t trained for that, that, the body can’t do it. We have to keep on training until the body has enough muscle and strength so that it can actually run for that length of time.
It will have to obey eventually what we want it to do. Anyone who’s ever tried meditation, and I presume that most of you have, knows that the mind does not obey. It does what it likes instead of what we would like it to do. Well, it just hasn’t been trained long enough. Just like a body that’s gonna go on a marathon and hasn’t been trained, it just won’t do it.
It’s gonna fall down on the ground. It cannot continue. The same with the mind. It goes from here to there and everywhere, and then finally comes back to the meditation subject and starts running off again. If we practice meditation diligently with determination and perseverance, we will eventually have those muscles in the mind that will make it stand still where we want it, when we want it to stand still.
Now that gives the mind a great deal of strength. That’s the kind of strength that is necessary to eventually see a different reality. The food that we give the body, we are care we are careful that we don’t give it any poison. We would be foolish if we did. We don’t want to give it anything that’s dirty.
We won’t want to give it anything that doesn’t look nourishing. We don’t want to give it anything that we have found doesn’t agree with us. But are we that careful about the food that we put into the mind? Now that’s not only in the meditation. That’s in our daily activities.
The media, for instance, are constantly feeding us. Are we watching what we put in? Our conversations are constantly feeding the mind. Are we careful with them? The Buddha said that noble friends and noble conversation are a common antidote for our defilements, for that what ails us.
So we need to be very careful what kind of food we put into our mind with our conversations. Now sometimes people say that other people have conversations which are not very wholesome. Do we turn our backs on them? Well, primarily, first, we try to change the trend of that conversation. If we are skillful, maybe the people won’t even notice that we’re manipulating the conversation.
If we’re not very skillful, maybe they will notice and still allow it. And if they don’t allow it, we might have to turn our back on it. Just like we would turn our back on a plate of poisoned food, we wouldn’t put it into our body. Why put it into our mind? Our mind is far more precious than our body.
Our mind is that what makes everything happen. The whole of the universe happens because of mind. If we come a little nearer, it’s not our bodies that made it possible to go to the moon. It’s the minds that made it possible. It’s not our bodies that told us to come here tonight.
It’s our mind. The body has to follow suit. If the mind is determined to do it, the body has to come along unless it’s so sick that it can no longer do it. So it’s one of the most important aspects is to be at least as careful about the mind’s food as we are about the body’s food. There is much good food available for the mind.
All the books that are on the bookshelf out there or in there, all health food for the mind. The conversations which are uplifting, the conversations which bring us nearer to an understanding of reality, all of those are health food for the mind. Through our meditative practice, when the mind has got the muscles and the energy that we want it to have, then, of course, that kind of looking for the good food for the mind also becomes easier because the mind is more one pointed, more directional. The purification of mind, that what we wash every day, the body and the clothes. If we don’t do that for the mind, we’re losing out on the most important aspect of our lives.
The mind is like a jewel. It’s the jewel with which we are living in saṃsāra, but can also attain nibbana. Samsāra is the wheel of person death. Nibbana is stepping out of it, the total purification. It’s all in the same mind.
We don’t get a new mind. It’s that one. So if we realize that this is a jewel, that we ourselves are scratching and also putting dirt spots on that we ourselves are not treating as if it was a jewel, but are taking for granted, then it will be in our own interest to purify it. One moment of concentration in meditation is one moment of purification. Now if we have only one second of concentration in meditation, we have one second of purification.
Now if we can add on to these seconds, so we have maybe ten and then maybe a hundred or a thousand, we have a purification process. This purification process comes about because our mind can only do one thing at a time, luckily. The Buddha said we can have three thousand mind moments in the blink of an eyelid. Luckily, we don’t have that many usually. But the mind is that fast.
It’s faster than light. But because we are using our mind constantly, we have to watch that it is used in a way where we can actually see that it purifies. So one moment in meditation of concentration makes it impossible to have any negative thought, and therefore, it’s a purifying aspect. But it’s not enough to do that in meditation because most people don’t meditate that much in their lives. If they’re doing well, they might do two hours a day.
Well, there’s twenty four hours in the day, and out of those, we might sleep seven, which leaves seventeen. Two hours meditation leaves fifteen. Now with those fifteen hours, we gotta do something too. As we forget all about looking after our mind in those fifteen hours, we cannot make good in those two of meditation. So the formula which the Buddha devised for that is not to let an unwholesome thought arise which has not yet arisen.
Not to let an unwholesome thought continue which has already arisen. To make a wholesome thought arise which has not yet arisen. To make a wholesome thought continue which has already arisen. This is one of the most important formulas you could possibly remember of the Buddha’s teaching, take home with you and practice morning, noon, and night. Because what it means is that we no longer take our mind for granted.
Most meditators come to that point pretty quickly. When they realize that the mind is playing games all the time, they no longer believe everything the mind says in daily life either. But we have to come to the point where we find it not only possible, but imperative to let go of the unwholesomeness in thinking and substitute with wholesomeness. Substitute with wholesomeness. One of the most difficult things is to recognize an unwholesome thought before it arises, but I can give you a clue on it.
It stretches out some feelers. There’s a feeling ahead of it, a feeling of heaviness, grayness, and non peacefulness before the unwholesome thought formulates. So if one becomes aware of that, one can immediately substitute all that with a wholesome thought. Everybody knows what’s wholesome and what is unwholesome. Anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence can tell.
We need not question another person about that because we know. Now if we keep on doing that, what happens? First of all, our our own inner life is far more peaceful. Our own inner life is harmonious. Because of that, our outer life, our relationships are more peaceful and more harmonious because they all depend upon our inner life.
And we are using a purification process for our mind so that eventually it can no longer have any unwholesomeness in it. Well, that is of course an ideal, which happens automatically if we keep on purifying. If we don’t, the mind is very habitually orientated. If we habitually dislike things and people and ourselves and situations, that habit takes hold of us and gets the mind on a downward grade the same way that we can put it on an upward grade. It’s like I like to compare that with a heavy truck driving on the same ruts along a driveway and making the ruts deeper and deeper until eventually we can only get this truck out with a forklift.
We can no longer get it out with our own steam. If we put in ruts which are unwholesome, our mind can no longer free itself from them without help. Depression and very serious depression can follow. If we put in the ruts of wholesomeness, then we have that purification process happening, which makes the mind the jewel it is meant to be. All of us have the same kind of mind.
All of us have the same potential for total liberation. The Buddha preached for forty five years to people like ourselves. If we didn’t all have that same potential of total freedom and liberation within us, he would have been wasting his time. We do have it. It is a matter only of being watchful and careful and knowing what to do with our mind.
So the purification process which happens through the meditation has to be then reinforced and supported in daily life with this formula which I’ve just detailed. Medicine, which we use immediately for the body when something is wrong. The Buddha was often called the great physician and the dhamma, the medicine. Now if we were sick and we went to a doctor and told him that we had pains in our kidneys or somewhere. And he would prescribe a medicine, and we’d go to the chemist and buy the medicine, and then bring the little bottle home and put it on the mantelpiece and go past this mantelpiece where the little bottle stands every single day and would say, what a nice bottle.
It’s got good medicine in it. I’m sure it’s very helpful. And we do that day after day. Would we get well? We would have the same kidney pains we’ve always had.
It’s the same with the dhamma, the Buddha’s teaching. If whatever we know of it, we’ve got to swallow it just like we have to swallow the medicine for the body in order to have that kind of recovery. It is the great medicine, which when we swallow it, which means that we actually not only know it, but remember it. And after remembering it, practice it. And after having practiced it, evaluate how we feel about it, how we feel within ourselves.
If we do that, then this medicine works. And anyone who has any pains in their bodies usually does something about it. What about the pains we have in the mind? Most people think that these pains that we have in the mind can be changed through outer changes. Find a new partner, find a new job, find a new diet, find a new house, find a new country, find new friends, find new exercise, anything at all outside of ourselves.
But that doesn’t change our inner response. The outer trigger does not mean that we had in a inside of ourselves any healing. It just means that we’re now concerned with something entirely different until that again becomes boring or unsatisfactory, and we have to look for something else. Because the world is so full of experiences, people, possibilities, it’s called in Pali, papañca, diversification, proliferation. We could, for a whole lifetime, look for something new, and most people do.
But the pain in the mind, which is very often just a bit of dissatisfaction, a realization of nonfulfillment will not go away through that. That needs a medicine, a medicine of absolute truth, which we can find in the dhamma in the Buddha’s teaching. And if we swallow it, it will cure. It has been curing for two and a half thousand years, and it keeps on curing. But it only cures those people that really take that medicine.
So this is our purification, our exercise, our health food, now medicine. But now we also need a rest. The mind is the most precious tool that exists in the whole of the universe, and we all have part of that. We all partake of that precious tool. Now if we had a good tool, let’s say an expensive chainsaw, we wouldn’t let that run without any paws.
We wouldn’t leave it outside in the rain. We wouldn’t keep it unoiled and never sharpen it. And yet, if we did all that and it became useless, which it would, we could buy a new one. Well, try and buy a new mind. They’re not for sale.
We’ve got to look after it. We’ve got to sharpen it, oil it, take it in out of the rain, and stop it from running. Every meditator knows what it means that the mind’s running. It runs away from us. People who don’t meditate aren’t quite so aware of that, but they are aware of the fact that they’d like to have a bit of peace and quiet in their mind.
So sometimes people think, well, we’ll go on a holiday. We’ll get a bit of peace and quiet. Well, what goes on a holiday? The body. Now it lies on a deck chair at the Barrier Reef and goes swimming.
And what does the mind do? The mind is still thinking, judging, relating, reacting, disliking, hoping, wanting, planning. It’s still doing its own all its old tricks. The only way that it is at all possible to give the mind the much needed rest is through meditation. There is no other possibility because when we sleep, we dream.
Meditation as such, if we begin with it, doesn’t give that much needed rest either. It comes about the moment that we are able to keep the mind long enough on the meditation subject so that we can discard the meditation subject and become aware of our inner purity. Because by that time, the purity of mind has taken over. Original mind is pure. The Buddha compared the mind to the gold, how it is found in its original state.
When it is found in its original state, it has five impurities in it. It has five minerals in it, which the goldsmith has to take out through heating the gold so that the mind becomes total sorry. The gold becomes totally pure, and then it becomes so pliable that he can make any kind of ornament out of it. Now the same is with our mind. It’s gold.
It’s a jewel, but it has our impurities in it. Now when we are able to meditate where we can concentrate and stay with what we’re doing, then these impurities cannot arise and we get back to the original gold of the mind. At that time, the mind has a complete rest. It doesn’t have to think. Now a mind that doesn’t think is not a blank mind.
It’s all very often misunderstood. A mind that doesn’t think is a mind that experiences its own purity. And that experience of its own purity brings about the regeneration of energy in the mind. And with that regeneration of energy in the mind, the mind has a much better chance to see reality. Meditation is a means, not an end in itself.
It’s a means to make the mind able to eventually see things as they really are. This was the Buddhist aim, to make it possible for people to see things as they really are, not as we would like them to be because they never are the way we’d like them to be. And this is where why we have dissatisfaction and not the way we think they ought to be. That too doesn’t work. If we were to see them as they are, things as they are, we wouldn’t have any cause or call to try to back against it.
They just are. It’s not a fatalistic acceptance. It’s a deep understanding of the laws of nature. And when we see the laws of nature as they are, we see a different reality. And then that different reality makes it possible to lose the kind of self centered and self illusion that gives us all our difficulties.
So when we have the ability in meditation to get to the point where the mind no longer thinks but experiences, it’s the first time that we have found a home for the mind. This home makes it possible, after we have become skilled at it, for the mind to return to it when it wants to, so that not only the body can go home and sit in a nice armchair and feel at ease, but we can sit on a pillow with our legs crossed, and the mind can go home to its own purified state and experience that. Now, obviously, this kind of ability has a residue in daily life. We take it with us. We know that the mind can go home, not only the body, which gives all the vicissitudes that we experience in daily life much less of a sting.
They’re still happening. They always will, but the sting is removed because we know we can go home. And we also take with us part of that purification process. When we take that part of the purification process with us, again, our reactions become totally different. We do not react in the same way we have.
So our ability to meditate properly, meaning that we can actually concentrate and stay without sinking and just experiencing what there is, makes it possible to have in daily life the certainty that we have within us all the means to be peaceful and happy. It isn’t outside of us. It’s within. And having gained that certainty, then it’s it’s much easier to purify. It’s much easier to stay with our wholesome thinking and to substitute.
Now the substitution that is necessary from the unwholesome to the wholesome is another meditative training that everybody gets when they meditate, namely, when the mind starts running away, as it always does in the beginning, we learn to substitute our thinking with the meditation subject. That’s a substitution process. It’s a letting go process. Letting go of one, substituting with another. That same process is needed in everyday life.
The substitution from one to the other. If we don’t learn that in meditation, we will find it very difficult to do that in daily life. If we don’t come to the point in meditation where we have the real rest, the regeneration of mind, we will find it very difficult to keep on purifying. When we have that regeneration of energy in the mind, we will find a clarity which we didn’t have before. And the clarity will encompass not just what we learn through the Buddha’s teaching, but everything that touches us.
It all takes on a different view because inside of us, there’s peacefulness. Everybody, you know, maybe almost everybody wants peace and happiness within. And almost everybody thinks that it can be found outside of us. This particular meditation experience, when it comes together to that point, makes it quite clear that it isn’t outside. It’s within.
We’ve all got it within. So now we learn to take care of our mind in a way which is at least as important as looking after our body. And when we have any sense at all, we don’t use our body in a way which may make it may hurt it, make it fall, break bones. We don’t do that. Why do we do this with the mind?
Why do we use the mind in a way where we become excited, worried, fearful, anxious, upset, angry, hateful, envious. And then not only that, think it’s somebody else’s fault. We would never do that with our body. We wouldn’t use our body in a way that is so detrimental to its well-being. And yet our whole well-being is dependent upon the mind.
Nothing can take the place of mind. Now when we want to change things in our lives, we often like to also move from one maybe from the city to the country, maybe from a house to an apartment, or vice versa, maybe from one city to another. But the one thing that we can’t move out of are our mind states. They come with us wherever we go. It doesn’t matter where our home is.
If we haven’t got the ability to use our mind to its best advantage, then it doesn’t matter what else we do. Now we learn through the meditative procedure that we do not need to take our mind for granted. We can actually restructure. Now this is a word that is used in today’s psychology. Buddha talked about it two and a half thousand years ago.
The word that’s used in today’s psychology is cognitive restructuring. It’s exactly what the Buddha talks about. He says that if there are unwholesome thoughts within, which then result in unwholesome speech and action, the person that we hurt most is ourselves. There’s nobody else that gets hurt as badly as we ourselves. And not only do we hurt ourselves, we also contribute to the negativities which are rampant on this planet amongst humanity.
If we have any consideration for ourselves and others, then it is important that we realize whatever comes out of us is of great importance to all around us. If it is whatever comes out of us is unwholesome, we are polluting our environment. It isn’t just the exhaust from the car that pollutes the environment. We are polluting our human environment through our negative thinking. And another thing we need to remember is that our karma is, first of all, being made in thought.
Everything starts with the mind. So all the karma that we make starts with thinking. And whether we then follow through with speech and action are secondary and tertiary results. The first primary one is mind. And although the mind action is the karma of the least consequence, it is the most used one.
If we think something but don’t follow through with speech, the karma is still rather faint. When we follow through with speech, it becomes much stronger. When we follow through with action, it becomes the strongest. But yet everything we think makes karma. Now some of it, of course, is neutral, but most of it is either wholesome or unwholesome.
And because the karma we make is the kind of life that we have because all the resultants are our support systems. That’s why watching our own mind is the only sensible thing to do. Without that, we are constantly in danger, constantly in danger of falling off a precipice. Feeling sorry for oneself, for instance, is the danger of becoming depressed. Being feeling hateful towards others is a danger of actually talking and acting in that way.
A constant danger if we haven’t looked after our mind properly so that we feel at ease. This is one of the reasons why so many people feel alienated and threatened by others because they cannot trust their own emotional responses. If we can trust our own emotional responses to know that no matter what, we’re respond lovingly and compassionately. Then there’s no threat because the threat does not come from someone else. The threat comes from in here.
This is threatening us. We’re going to fall apart. We are going to act in an unsuitable manner. So if we watch our mind purified, get it to the point where we can trust it, we can also trust others. No matter what they do, our responses are gonna be pure and wholesome.
Our alienation from others, our feeling of being separate from the rest of the world, this is me and this is you. This is them and this is us. This is what I want, but never mind what others want. All this separation from others is due to the fact that our egocentricity makes it possible for us to have only our own wants, our own likes and dislikes in mind, makes us feel very unsafe. Because how can one single small person be safe in a universe so full of other people, other beings, animals, the vicissitudes of climate and weather, the difficulties that arise everywhere.
How can one person ever be safe if that alienation from others, that separation from others is there? When we learn to use our mind in the right kind of way, in the way which is wholesome, then we realize that our togetherness is based on our lovingness and compassion with each other. And then we don’t have that feeling of being threatened or feeling unsafe or being separated. We realize that we are together. Nobody can argue the point that we are together.
We are together here at the same time on the same planet in the same place and here even speaking the same language. How can we feel separate from each other? It’s only because we’re not using our mind correctly, because we think this optical illusion of having all these different little heaps sitting here makes us all separate from each other. This is a strictly an optical illusion, nothing else. In reality, our scientists have been saying for the last fifteen or more years that there isn’t a single solid building block in the whole of the universe.
The only thing that that exists are energy particles coming together and falling apart so fast that they give the illusion of solidity. Now, of course, the scientists who did this experiment and found this out and wrote it up in papers and books did not include themselves in that. If they had, they would have been enlightened by now. The Buddha, of course, said exactly the same thing, but he saw it from himself. But it is a truth which we can even scientifically prove, but we can also prove it feelingly.
We don’t want to separate ourselves, and yet we do. Why? Because our mind cannot act in the way that we would like it to do, namely with love and compassion. Because there’s that self centered feeling of I have to protect myself. When we come to know that this is unwholesome, when we come to know that this prevents us from being peaceful and harmonious within, then we will certainly try to change that.
And it is a meditative insight which comes to people who do who meditate, but it also can be an insight which comes to us by just being attentive to our inner re resources. We all have the resources within to make the best possible life for ourselves through the purification of mind. But we don’t use them. We are thinking of outer resources. Some questions.
And after we finish with that, with the question time, I’d like to do a guided loving kindness meditation with you after that. But first, I’d like to give you a chance to ask some questions if you like. Yes. Did I hear you right? What are the impurities in the mind?
Well, the impurities on the mind, you can also say that they are all the negativities. The Buddha gave a list of five hindrances which are the impurities in the mind. Of course, we have far more. These are like headings. The desire for sensual gratification, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and skeptical doubt.
But under these headings, for instance of ill will, we have to put fear, anxiety, envy, jealousy, pride, anger, fury, hate, everything that creates a destructive attitude, anything that has within it the negation rather than the uplifting. And I’m sure everybody can feel it in themselves because when we have any of them, we don’t feel quite so good. We feel much better when there’s love and compassion. Is that clear? Okay.
Yes. Yes. The question is, is this where evil comes from? Yes. Absolutely.
It comes from the mind. It’s not an outer thing. It’s not something out there in the atmosphere. It’s within the mind, and we can see lots of it happening. We are all beset with our hindrances, but we all have the opposite opposite capacity also.
So it’s a matter of cultivating that which is positive rather than that which is negative. Yes. Do we the mind from sensual gratification? Unbolt it? Un unbolt before the bogging extract.
Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
How do we unbog the mind from sensual gratification, from the desire for sensual gratification? Well, in two ways, the the first way comes through meditation. If if the meditation comes to a point where we actually experience one pointedness. Pointedness. Now one pointedness is one of the five factors of the meditative absorption.
I think you were there last night, weren’t you? Yes. And I only got a size of third one. So one pointedness is the fifth one. The fifth factor of the first five factors of meditative absorption, and it counteracts the desire for sensual gratification very effectively.
During the meditation time, if one is one pointed, no desire can arise. It’s not the my left knee hurts, would like to get up. I’m hungry, why aren’t they calling us for lunch? I’m thirsty, it’s too hot. None of that can arise.
It’s all one pointedness in the meditation. So because of that, the purification process takes place during the meditation. Now outside of meditation, because there’s this residue of the happiness which has arisen in meditation, the sensual gratification no longer is looked upon as a source of fulfillment. Now that doesn’t mean that we can no longer enjoy a nice sunset, a good meal, a nice conversation with some friends, or a good book. We certainly can.
But the expectation of gaining fulfillment from any of these sensual gratifications through the senses has been let go of. So because the expectation is not there anymore, the disappointment isn’t there anymore. And because of that, the search for the sensual gratification is no longer there. When they arise, they are gratefully received. But when they don’t arise, well, they are not.
There’s no disappointment about them. So it is actually an understanding of the meditative path and the ability to do it, which then gets carried over into daily life. But there is also reinforcement through insight. And the insight path goes this way. Now this is what the first meditative path I’m talking about is the path of calm and tranquility.
Now the insight path goes in this way, that we realize that all that we get through the senses is extremely short lived. It cannot be otherwise. If it were long lived, it would become misery. You can think about it like this. Let’s say we were very hot today, which certainly was the case.
So we went and took a cold shower. And maybe we stood in this cold shower and called out to our host, this is nice. Now I’m feeling much better. And then the host says, well, I’ve got plenty of water. Be my guest.
Stay another hour. Stay another two hours. Well, it becomes misery, doesn’t it? I’m in a cold shower ten minutes, and that’s about the maximum. One can handle that.
And this is the same with all sense contacts. They have to be short lived. And when one sees their necessity for impermanence through insight, then also this search for them is given up. The acceptance of receiving them, certainly, and the enjoyment of them, yes, but no longer the hope this is gonna do it for me. So it has both aspects.
It has the aspect of calm, which is the automatic way of doing it, and it has the aspect of insight, which is a deliberate way of doing it. They both reinforce each other. Is that clear? Okay. One problem with that is you tend to always put that into the future, and it’s difficult to actually do it now.
Yes. Well, you see, there is no future. When the future comes, it’s always called the present. There is no tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, it’s today.
It’s a hope and a prayer, and we don’t really can really work with hopes and prayers. The only time that we have is this moment, this one moment. And when you have those digital clocks, they’re very good in showing us impermanence. They are constantly moving, and every moment is gone. And this is exactly our life.
Now you can remember ten years ago, but you of course, you can’t remember much about it, but you can remember that you were alive ten years ago. Well, it seems like a moment, doesn’t it? It’s gone. But we can only live in this one moment. Life has to be experienced, not thought about.
If we think about life, we’re not experiencing it. And so the experience has to be now. There’s only this moment. And so whenever we see something that appears to have a satisfaction in it and greed is the one for the sensual satisfaction, the one that’s much harder to see than hate, then we need to call upon the jewel of our mind and let it distribute some wisdom within us to see that impermanence. It can’t satisfy.
But it’s greatly supported through the calm meditation, through the tranquility meditation, where the mind gains that possibility of no longer thinking but experiencing and having the residue of that happiness. Those two really need to work together. Okay. What else have we got? Yes.
I don’t know. I don’t like to make such general statements. I always think, well, maybe there’s somebody that doesn’t. The Buddha said, you know, he gave a long discourse about speech. It’s called the discourse on non conflict.
It’s all about speech. And he said first of all, he said, the Dhamma has to be preached in the language of the country, but not in its dialect. The dhamma has to be preached precisely. Has to be precision in it. And one should never underrate or exaggerate.
So I’m always trying to not exaggerate and saying everybody well. I say, well, almost everybody. Just to be careful. Yes. Sorry.
You work with disturbed children, isn’t it? Yes. Yes. Well, have you noticed that some of the children can overcome it? Yes.
It’s very slow. Yes. Yeah. But it’s possible. Yes.
Well, you see, again, we have this the understanding of karma. Right? What has happened to these children is a karmic retribution, but that does not leave us out of helping them. It’s your karma, your great good karma to be able to help them. That’s excellent karma to do that.
But we must also see that there is you see now the one who abused this child, doesn’t he have gonna have a retribution? Is he gonna get away with it? He or she? There’s gonna be a karmic retribution in whatever form. It’s impossible to say what exact form that retribution is gonna take, But something is gonna happen, and this is what happened with these children.
So because they now also have the good karma that you’re looking after them and that they are being taken care of, they if their minds are able, they may overcome. Some of them may not. They’ll have to try again. So it’s we have you see the people who’ve done it will have karmic retribution. And we don’t have to worry about it.
We all get our own karmic retributions. So it’s it’s that’s why the only thing we can do is watch our own mind, that we don’t get into the danger of doing, you know, the wrong things. But you can be grateful that you have the good karma to be able to do a thing like that because it’s a very, very excellent opportunity to do something like that. Okay. What else?
Yes? Yes. Well, the the karmic retribution, you can see like this. If you plant a tomato seed in the garden, you’re not gonna get a carrot. You’re going to definitely get tomatoes.
And that’s the way it works. Whatever you plant, that’s what you’re going to get the fruit of. Not that you or I will be able to see that these people are getting the fruit of that. We may not be standing around in their garden to watch it. But whatever we plant, that’s the kind of fruit we get.
And we don’t know when it has been planted and we don’t know when the fruit will ripen. But it is exactly the same in the teachings of Jesus. As you sow, you will reap. Exactly the same thing. It is a law of nature.
It cannot we cannot escape. That’s why we gotta be careful. Take great care. Were abused themselves, there was some sort of retribution towards them? Sorry.
I couldn’t hear all that. The children that were abused themselves, did you say there was some sort of retribution towards them that was why it happened to them? Yes. It’s their karma. Yes.
They must have sown a seed for that. A child is three years old? Not necessarily in this life. We don’t know. But this was also one of the four imponderables.
Buddha was often asked about these things, and he said, we cannot understand the intricacies of karma. It’s enough to know that the karmic resultants are ours, but the intricacies, how it works, that we cannot understand. He gave a nice analogy. He said that if we put a teaspoon of salt in a cup of water, it becomes undrinkable. But if we put a teaspoon of salt into the Ganges River, it makes no difference to the river.
That’s why when two people do the same, they still don’t have the same resultants. So we cannot understand the intricacies of it. All we have to do is be careful. That’s the best thing to do. When you were talking about unwholesome thoughts, I think I heard you say that we always knew when they were.
Mhmm. I I find that one a bit puzzling. I thought that sometimes we know quite plainly, and sometimes we can be fooled, and sometimes we can sincerely think certain things are not unwholesome because of the way we’ve been taught. Well, the idea it was unwholesome to get around nude when I was a little boy. You know?
So some people told me that. That was that was immoral. But then I came to see that that wasn’t an unwholesome thought to think I’m going nude. That was a sensible thought. Well, it’s not immoral.
I would say it’s unconventional, isn’t it? To go around nude in Adelaide would be unconventional. I don’t always know what is unwholesome. I mean, most times I do. Let your conscience be your guide.
And whatever your conscience tells you, that’s the best you can do. You cannot expect to go to somebody with every thought and ask them whether it’s a good one or a bad one. It’s just not possible. You’re gonna have to use your conscience. That means if you live in in New Guinea a generation ago, you would have a guilty conscience if you didn’t weren’t a headhunter because you were taught to be a headhunter.
If you didn’t, you didn’t have a guilty conscience. I don’t know. I I cannot remember having lived in New Guinea. Maybe I did at some time. I have no connection with that kind of thinking.
But whatever it is, that’s your conscience. Yes. You see, you cannot go around asking people what is wholesome and unwholesome with every thought you have in the mind. You can’t find anybody to do that for you. There’s nobody around that will do that for you.
You’ve got to use your own conscience. And some people have a stronger moral and social conscience than others. And so their actions will be more wholesome than others. And as they learn, as as people learn that they’re getting hurting themselves through lack of with referring to that, they will learn. Dukkha is our best teacher.
You know the word dukkah? It’s our best teacher. The more dukkah, the more teaching. There’s nobody there that will hold your hand and say that thought was no good. That thought was good.
It just isn’t possible. And that’s why I said we all know as well as we can, as much as we can. And some things are dependent upon social customs, conventions, and traditions. We have to live with them. It’s all we can do.
The best we can do. And you see, perfection is a prerogative of the arahant, the enlightened one. And since I don’t think there are any in this room at this moment, I may be wrong, we have to make do with the best we can. We have to be accepting of the fact that we’re not perfect. Anything else?
One of my teachers always said, if you want to be reborn intelligent, you gotta ask a lot of questions. And I dare say if you don’t wanna be reborn at all, you gotta ask even more. Any anything else? Yeah. Buddha’s explanation of the mind is citta consisting of four parts, feeling, perception, mental formation, and sense consciousness.
No. No. It’s not. It’s a it’s a a stream of thing. Now I can give you an example.
Right now, you’re sitting on the floor, and you can feel quite markedly, I would say, the buttocks on the ground. Right? Okay. And it may even be not so pleasant because it’s not soft, maybe a little unpleasant. Well, the touch sensation of being on the ground is a sense consciousness.
From each sense consciousness, from each sense contact arises a feeling, which can be one of three kinds, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Because we have very little, not so much mindfulness that we don’t that we know the neutral feelings and also because at least the neutral one isn’t unpleasant, we usually think it’s pleasant. So we are only concerned with pleasant and unpleasant. So we’ve got two kinds. Now that arises automatically.
From all sense contacts arises feeling. The next thing that arises is perception. In the in the case of an unpleasant feeling, it says pain. In the case of an pleasant feeling, it may say wonderful. Lovely.
And the next thing that arises after that is Sankara, which can be translated as mental formation or karma formation. See, our mental formations make the karma. And then the mind says, I don’t like it. I’ve got to move. Or the mind says, oh, I like this very much.
I wish I could keep it. So this is what happens in that progression all the time, and you should check it out. Everyone should check that out and become aware of it because it’s the only way we can ever cut in there and make a change in that preprogrammed printout. When we want when we when we actually become aware of that, we can change it. But first, we’ve got to know it, that it’s happening.
That’s what mind is according to the Buddha’s explanation. Of course, he also went into more detail, but that would go a bit far. Anything else? Alright. If you’ve come to the end of the questions, we’ll do a loving kindness meditation.
Those of you who are sitting on the floor, are you uncomfortable? You want to stand up a moment and stretch your legs? Okay. Stand up a moment. Stretch your legs.
If you’re always sitting on a chair, don’t cross your legs. Put them next to each other and just feet solidly on the ground to have support. And if you can sit without leaning against the backrest, it’s better. Keep the back straight, the head straight, eyes closed, hands on in the lap or on the knees, whichever is more convenient for you. And just become aware of the breath for a moment, how it goes in and out of the nostrils.
Just watch that for a moment. Think of yourself as your own best friend, the one responsible for your own happiness and unhappiness. Let the feeling of friendship for yourself arise within, giving you a feeling of warmth, care, and concern, and surround yourself with a feeling of lovingness. Think of yourself as the best friend of the person sitting nearest you in this hall. Fill him or her with the sincerest depths of friendship, care and concern, and embrace him or her with love.
Think of yourself as the best friend of everyone here. Letting the feelings of friendship, warmth, care, and concern reach out to everyone here, filling everyone with them and embracing everyone with love. Think of yourself as the best friend of your parents, filling them with your friendship, with your care, and concern, and embracing them with your love. Think of yourself as the best friend of those people who are nearest and dearest to you, filling them with your friendship, with your warmth, with care that they can rely on, embracing them with love. Think of all your good friends.
And feel yourself to be their best friend. Fill them from head to toe with the depths and sincerity of your friendship friendship that they can rely on your care and concern and embrace them with love. Think of your neighbors, people at work, people you meet here and there, on the street, in the shops, on your travels. Think of yourself as their best friend. Make them part of your life, which they are, extending true friendship to them, filling them with your care and your warmth, embracing them with your love.
Think of anyone whom you find difficult to love, who may have put obstacles in your way. And remember the purification of your own heart and mind. Think of yourself as that person’s best friend, helpful and caring, loving and concerned. Think of yourself as the best friend of all the people who live in this town. Let the friendship and love and warmth from your heart open up and reach out as far as it will go to all the people’s houses and to their hearts, filling as many as you can with the depths and sincerity of friendship with your care and concern.
Put your attention back on yourself. Feel the contentment which arises from making the right kind of effort, the joy that comes from loving and giving. Realize that that is what a best friend does for his or her best friend. Resolve to remain your own best friend. Let these feelings fill you and surround you, giving you a feeling of being at ease, at peace.
May all beings be friends with each other. Thank you very much for coming this evening. Chandima is gonna say a few words. Okay. I came and will be here until the end of the weekend.
And on the weekend, she’s holding a retreat called Calm and Insight. It’s at Oldham Hills, and there are three places left for that retreat. And if you were interested in coming, you could see Ruby, who was the person on the door when you came in. It could be three guys. See, we’ve got one small room and we’ve got one guy.
So it could be three guys or it could be two women, I think. Four. Yeah. It’s a little bit bubbly. If it’s nonresidential women and one guy.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And if it’s nonresidential, that that you know, the the beds don’t matter.
Also, there’s a table, outside near where Ruby was taking the money, and there are three books on display there. And, they’re wonderful books that Ayya Khema has written. They’re for free distribution, distribution, but you would need, to leave fifty cents if you would like them sent, by sea from Sri Lanka, or two dollars if you’d like them by air mail. And there’s a list there, paper. We just put your name and your address if you’d be interested in in receiving those books.
And please print name and address with postal code. This is coming a long way. And yesterday, some people’s address, I can’t read them. So please print. And Ayya has one more talk here, not at Buddha House, but in Adelaide Adelaide Hall, which is part of Parkside Wesley College, which is, at twenty King William Road, and that’s tomorrow night at seven thirty.
And the title is Happiness is a Skill. If anybody thought of any more question? Yes, it’s a good question.