2020 Zoom MN 29 Mahasaropama Sutta - The Greater Discourse on the Simile of the Heartwood-QLOHwPk

From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=QLOHwPk_Hlc

Context: Throughout this transcript, Bhante Vimalaramsi is the speaker unless otherwise indicated.

[Music]

i hope everybody's had a good week

this particular suta is one that i like

very much

because it it spells out

the different stages that happen

during the time of the buddha

it's a different stages for monks and

what they

are striving to attain so

that's what i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living at roger gaha

on the mountain vulture peak

it was soon after devadatta had left

they're referring to david gotta the

blessed one

addressed amongst us

monks here some clansmen go forth out of

faith

from the home life into homelessness

considering

i'm a victim of birth aging and death of

sorrow

lamentation pain grief and despair

i'm a victim of suffering a prey to

suffering

surely an ending of this whole mass of

suffering can be known

when he has gone forth thus he acquires

gain

honor and renown

he's pleased with gain honor and

renowned as

in and his intention is fulfilled

that's what happened to dave adata

and there are some monks

that that's all they're interested in

is becoming popular

to me that's a very low course of action

and it feeds the ego so you don't get

as good a teaching from somebody that's

just looking for gain

and honor and renown

on account of which he lodges himself

and disparages other

i have gained honor and renown

but these other monks are unknown of no

account

he becomes intoxicated with

gain honor and renown grows negligent

falls into negligence and being

negligent he lives in suffering

suppose a man needing heartwood seeking

heartwood

wandering in search of heartwood came to

a great tree

standing possessed of heartwood

passing over its heartwood its sapwood

its inner bark its outer bark

it would cut off its twigs and leaves

and

take them away thinking they were

heartwood

then a man with good sight seeing

might say this good man

did not know the heartwood the sapwood

the inner bark the outer bark

or the twigs and leaves thus

while kneading heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood he came to a great treat a

standing possessed of heartwood

passing over its heartwood it sapped

with its inner

bark and outer bark he cut off the twigs

and leaves and took them away

thinking they were heartwood

whatever it was this good man had

to make with heartwood his purpose will

not be

served so to

monks some clansmen go forth out of

faith but they still

live in suffering

this monk is called one who has taken

the twigs and leaves of the holy life

and

stopped short of that

here some clansmen go forth out of faith

from the home life into homelessness

considering

i'm a victim of birth aging and death of

sorrow lamentation

pain grief and despair i'm a victim of

suffering afraid to suffering

surely the ending of this whole mass of

suffering can be known

in in my experience of being a monk for

35 years

and uh practicing

meditation a few years before that

i came to the realization and that the

reason that i

started looking for meditation at all

was i was suffering i was suffering a

lot i got heavy into

depression and i was looking for a way

out

and all of all of the people that i've

ever talked to

about buddhism that was their goal

that was the orig the origination of the

start of the practice

now you have to have some curiosity

to start looking

but the pain was in my case the pain was

so great i had to find

some way out of it or i was going to

commit suicide i hadn't come

i hadn't thought about suicide

quite yet but i knew that i was heading

that way

i think all of you have experienced

something like that

at the start of your practice you were

unsatisfied with what

life was presenting itself with and

there was a lot of suffering

and trying to get out of suffering

in in america when i first started that

was

in the mid 70s

that's when there was a lot of uh

whole magic mushrooms and lsd

and a lot of pot and things like that

that people were

taking so that they wouldn't experience

so much suffering

now i have run across some people

that come here and do a retreat

and then when they get off retreat they

immediately

light up a joint

not understanding that they are

hurting themselves more than they're

helping

when you take the precepts

be serious about it take the precepts

with the understanding that you're going

to keep the precepts

without breaking any of them

why because when you keep your precepts

without breaking them

your mind will naturally tend towards

peace and tranquility and when you start

doing the meditation your progress

is very fast

now i've given you some in the past

a few talks i've given you

the reason that this is like that

whenever you break a precept

you're

interfering with a peaceful calm

alert mind

even some something as trivial as a

little white lie

can affect you negatively

and you have to purify yourself from

that

before you're going to progress with

your meditation

now i've been with students it took a

long time for them to understand what

the meditation was about

i've had students for over 30 years that

when they got off retreat they went back

to the way they were

breaking precepts and using foul

language and things like that

breaking the precept of no

alcohol

now there are some medicines that

they have alcohol in them

those are called medicines not

uh drinking alcohol to exist so

it it clouds the way you think

i know that there are doctors that

recommend

as you get older to take a little maybe

a half an ounce or an ounce of wine

before you go to sleep

and you sleep more soundly and that's

considered medicine

but smoking a joint after uh

doing a retreat or any time

you're hurting yourself

please i want to warn you against doing

that

um dave adata was never

he became a monk under the buddha

and he was from a family that had great

merit

he was a buddha's cousin

but he was continually breaking precepts

especially with

[Music]

alcoholic drinks and

they had just as many drugs

during the time of the buddha as we do

now they give them different names now

but they still they

they had roots that they say if you take

this root and you

you hold it in your mouth you're going

to be very happy

and there are things like that but they

they really

cloud your mind so it's best not to do

that sort of thing

okay when a monk has gone forth thus he

acquires

gain honor and renown is not pleased

with gain honor and renown

and his intention is not fulfilled

he does not on account of it laud

himself and disparage others

he does not become intoxicated

with that gain honor and renown

he does not grow negligent and fall

into negligence

being diligent he achieves the

attainment of virtue

keeping the precepts this is

something for monks it's something

that's done very early in their practice

or before they even take on the practice

he's pleased with the attainment of

virtue

and his intention is fulfilled

on account of that he lodges himself and

disparages others

i'm virtuous of good character

but these other monks are immoral of

evil character he becomes intoxicated

with the attainment of virtue

grows negligent falls into negligence

and being negligent he lives

in suffering so even keeping your

precepts

without breaking them you still can have

a lot of suffering

why because you haven't purified your

mind enough

suppose a man knitting heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

hardwood

came to a great tree standing possessed

of heartwood

passing over its heart wood its sapwood

its inner bark he would cut off

the outer bark and take it away

thinking it was heartwood then a man

with good sight

seeing him might say this good man did

not know the heartwood

and only went away taking the

outer bark thus while

kneading heartwood he cut off the outer

bark and took it away

thinking it was heartwood whatever it

was

this good man had to make with heartwood

his purpose will not be served

so too monks here

some clansmen goes forth out of faith

still lives in suffering

this monk is called one who has taken

the outer bark of the holy life and

stopped

short with that

a lot of people

have an idea that all monks are

um they're supposed to be very

virtuous and the key word here is

supposed to be

but they still have a lot of stuff to go

through

they can still have their angers and

their greeds and that sort of thing

as they develop more and more

then they are able to let go

of those sort of things and become more

virtuous

all the time but a lot of laymen they

they put this label he's a monk how can

he do something like that

tell a lie or do something that's not

really appropriate for the monks

so you have to understand

that being a monk the first five years

that you become a monk you're supposed

to stay

with your uppachaya and upachaya

is a spiritual father

and he's going to train you over five

years

so that you can develop that uplifted

mind all the time

and you understand more and more what

the buddhist teaching is all about

and keeping the precepts

they they know very well what all of

that means

but if they don't stay for five years

then there's a wrong idea of

they're taking on the robes and there

can be a lot of mistakes that are made

and they don't know as as mistakes

one of the things that's happening in

the buddhist countries

as foreigners start to go

to these buddhist countries and become

monks

is they just ordain the monks

and let them go off on their own do

anything they want to do

so there's not this deep understanding

what a monk actually is

and how much they need to

spend time not only chanting but

visiting other monks

and talking with them about dhamma

so there's the wedding down

of the dhamma that's happening right now

that's kind of dangerous

now this practice that i've

i've been giving you the six r's

will purify your mind

and it will purify your mind so much

that you can become

a noble one

and the noble sangha

it doesn't matter whether you have robes

or or you are a layman

the way you join the noble sangha

is by experiencing

becoming at least a sodapana

now just because you become a sodapana

doesn't mean

that you automatically you're going to

be keeping the precepts all the time

you can still break a precept

but when you break a precept you feel

very very guilty

and that guilty feeling

is you know that you broke a precept

and you want to purify your mind

because if you break a precept and then

you go sit in meditation you're going to

have a lot of hindrances come up

you need to purify your mind

and there's different ways of doing that

one you go to a monk if there's one

available

and tell him that you broke a precept

and he will give you the precepts again

with a strong determination not to do

that again

[Music]

that's one way of purifying your mind

so you don't have that guilty feeling of

breaking a precept

excuse me

if there is no monk

around that you can confess your your

breaking of a precept

then you go to a spiritual friend

someone who truly

understands the essence of keeping your

your precepts very good while you

are living your life

and you confess it to a friend

one of the reasons that hindrances

arise is because

in the past in our recent past

or it could be past lifetimes we broke

precepts

as soon as you break a precept you have

a guilty mind

i shouldn't have done that

i had a lot of friends that that were in

wars

and they actually killed someone

and they said that that guilty feeling

never goes away

you look at life much differently

after doing a heinous act like killing

someone else

i highly recommend that they

start with forgiveness of themself

and when that person comes up in their

mind

they look them straight in the eye and

ask them

them to forgive him

and he forgives himself for doing that

act

and that's the only way that

you can really purify your mind

now during the time of the buddha

there was a monk

he was called angulimala

and his teacher

had told him that he had to go out and

kill a thousand people and cut off one

of their fingers

to prove that he had done that

now he wound up killing 999

people

[Music]

and he was a scourge

of a a certain area

in india people were afraid to go into

that forest because he was there

and he got a big reputation for killing

people

the angulimala

mala means necklace anguli

is finger so he was

named finger necklace

when it got time to kill

the one thousandth person to fulfill his

teachers

task the teacher was not a very virtuous

person

the angulimala

thought that he might for his thousandth

one

he would go out and kill his mother

the buddha saw that that was his

intention

that he was going to go out and try to

kill his mother

and he got in the way

he appeared right

as angulimala was planning

the the killing of his mother

and the buddha started walking

very slowly away

and angulimala was running after him

with the intention of killing him

but he couldn't catch up to the buddha

who was walking very slowly and he was

running as fast as he could

and he never caught up with the buddha

finally he stopped and he said

monk please

stop

and the buddha kept walking and turned

and said to him

i already have stopped

and angulimala said but you're still

walking

but the buddha said i have stopped

letting craving dictate things that

happened to me

in my life

now i there there's

a big emphasis on craving

and everybody's supposed to know what

craving is

and how to recognize it

and to my shock and dismay when i spent

12 years in asia i couldn't find

one person that came up with

the definition that really made sense

for craving

it talks about craving but it doesn't

tell you what the definition is

and of the four noble truths they talk

about

exactly how to recognize craving

know what it is understand it

how to let it go and

take the path that leads to the

cessation of the suffering

of craving

so anguli stopped on gulimala stopped

walking and so did the buddha

and then they started discussing dhamma

and anguli mala saw the error of his

ways

and he

eventually became a sodapana

just by talking with the buddha and

getting his

his mind more clear

and then he ordained

and became a buddhist monk

now about that time

the king pasanati of kosala

was sending out an army and they were

going to rid

rid the area of angulimala

so he went to the buddha first and

started talking with him

about the problems they were having with

angulimala and how he was killing so

many people

and andrew limala was sitting

in the group of sangha that was

listening to what

king kosala

[Music]

and the buddha said

what would you think if i told you

that angulimala

is sitting in this room

and the hair on the back of king

pasanati

it stood on its end

and then the buddha introduced him

as this is the monk

that was angulimala

and he has given up his

his killing ways

so the king took the bounty off of

angulimala

and allowed him to become be a monk

on golimala that one of the things that

happens when you're a monk

in in asia at that time

all the monks went out on arms around to

collect food for the day

then they would come back and eat it

but angulimala was re was recognized

as a uh a killer

and people were very angry at him and it

says in the text

that strays uh

rocks and stones and sticks would

uh hit him and he'd come back with blood

all over his head

and he kind of asked the buddha if

you could have the other monks go out on

ams round and get food for him and the

buddha said no

you have to face this

eventually angulimala became an arahat

and he's he's one of the uh

the group of 80

uh special arahats

it's real interesting if you if you go

to burma

it's right by mingun temple

there's another temple there that has a

marble statues of all 80

of the maha haras

maha means great or big

and angulimala is there i saw i saw

what the artist thought of him it was

carved out of marble

and he had really an angelic face

it really looked good more

more beautiful than a lot of the other

ones

anyway

so even if

anyone winds up

killing they have a guilty mind

or stealing or wrong sexual activity

or telling lies and gossip

or taking drugs and alcohol

they feel guilty by doing that

and this guilty feeling is the cause

of the wrong belief in a personal self

every time you break a precept it causes

your mind

to store up

that wrong belief i am that

and when you use the 6rs

which is the eight-fold path

you

your mind from that guilty feeling

and you finally let it go and when you

your mind becomes very clear and very

bright and you start seeing things

as they actually occur

now this seeing

anata in everything

the impersonal nature

means that you have a pure mind

at that time

that is how you achieve the cessation

of suffering

because you're not taking anything

personally anymore

you have more balance in your mind you

have more

true understanding of how this process

works

as we go along in the suta you'll see

that there's

different steps that monks go through

and this one monk that they're talking

about

he was very satisfied when he when he

gained virtue and he didn't continue on

and that's like taking the outer bark of

a tree

that has heartwood in it so he's not

gaining as much as he would truly like

to gain

here's some klansman goes forth out of

faith from the home life

into homelessness considering i'm a

victim of age

birth aging and death of sorrow

lamentation

pain grief and despair

i'm a victim of suffering pray to

suffering

surely ending and ending of this whole

mass of suffering can be known

when he's gone forth thus he acquires

gain honor and renown he's not pleased

with gain honor and renown

and his intention is not fulfilled

being diligent he achieves the

attainment

of virtue he's pleased with the

attainment of virtue but his intention

is not fulfilled

he does not on account of it laud

himself

and disparage others he does not become

intoxicated with that attainment of

virtue

he does not grow negligent and fall into

negligence

being negligent he achieves the

attainment of

collectedness he is pleased with the

attainment of collectedness and his

intention is fulfilled

now collectedness is a word that i

substitute for concentration

the word concentration is way too

misunderstood

as a result i don't like to use it

because

then almost everybody that does a kind

of concentration

winds up putting an awful lot of energy

into staying

in that that state

but when they come out

their concentration fades and

they have entrances coming back and they

haven't purified their mind of

hindrances

mind is pure well it's in the

concentration

state but when the concentration

diminishes

then the hindrances come back stronger

than they they would have

if you hadn't meditated at all

so it's real important for you to

realize

that collectedness

there's stillness of mind just like

there is with concentration

although it's not as deep

your mind is very composed your mind is

very alert and you're

able to see how

hindrances arise and how to let them go

by using the six r's

you see this over a period of time and

it's very

important that you understand this

this difference between the kinds of

meditation that there

are

when i was in india this year i was

there for

five months

i happened to

meet an awful lot of people that had

practiced

going to style meditation which was a

one-pointed concentration

and the goeinka style meditation

had a tendency to bring up

painful feelings in mind and body

and galenco was very big on pushing them

pushing the students so they would try

harder

and the more they tried

the worse the pains became

now the thing with pain is that

there's a natural aversion to pain

it doesn't matter whether it's mental or

physical

there is the aversion of that being

there

and the more you keep your attention on

that the bigger and more intense that

pain becomes

so when they came and started practicing

with me

and they started seeing that if you use

the six hours properly

and you don't have to sit on the floor

with it in a painful posture

you can sit in a chair and be

comfortable

their progress in the meditation was

very fast because they had developed

that kind of concentration

but they had to put in

the six r's

and the smile in their meditation

i get criticized a lot by a lot of

different people because

they are starting to go back into the

suttas now and they say well where does

it say that the buddha said you had to

smile

well if you look at a buddha image

you see the artist is trying to show you

that the buddhas experience

a kind of joy it's called all pervading

joy

this kind of joy has a great deal of

equanimity

with it

but your mind is light

anytime you try to push

away a hindrance to stop a hindrance

from coming up

you keep your attention on that

hindrance

and it gets bigger and more intense

i know because i had 20 years of

practice with

doing exactly that

straight vipassana meditation

tells you to note a hindrance

until it goes away now that's not

following

what right effort is in the eightfold

path

so when i would teach

how to use the six r's

the uh people that had been doing

goeinka meditation they would come

shocked at i didn't have any pain

well they were doing two things in india

everybody thinks that the only kind of

meditation you can do is

sitting on the floor

oh we've been sitting on the floor ever

since we were little children

fine but you're always moving around

because pain start to come up and then

you move so you don't feel the pain

so when people start to realize

that you use

right effort or harmonious practice as i

like to call it

that means one you notice that there's

something unwholesome that arose

there is a hindrance it has tension and

tightness in it

it pulls your attention away from your

object of meditation

the second part of right effort

is release

don't keep your attention on the

hindrance

as soon as you recognize that that

hindrance

is there you don't keep your attention

on it

you smile and you come back to your

object the meditation

and that hindrance will go away very

quickly

you relax when that hindrance

arose it arose because craving was in it

i am that i am the sadness i am this

feeling i

am this pain wherever it has to be i am

this

itch and i don't like it and i want it

to change

i i i i taking is false belief in the

personal self

so now

you relax and you let go

of that distraction you don't pay

attention to it at all

that distraction doesn't necessarily go

away by

itself or go away completely

it might still be there depending on the

amount of attachment you have on it

but you go through the six r's you

recognize

you release the distraction you

relax you re-smile

smiling is an important part of the

practice

why the more you smile

with the practice the more you smile

with your daily

activities

the sharper your mindfulness becomes

you're able to see more and more clearly

how these things arise

what happens first what happens after

that what happens after that

and you start to recognize that this is

a part of an

impersonal process you didn't ask that

that pain or sadness or guilt whatever

it happens to be

you didn't ask that to come up it came

up by itself

what you do with what

in the arises it

happened if you

with what happening right which is what

most of the goeinka people

were doing you can look forward to that

pain

coming up over and over and over again

until you learn

that's not the proper way to handle it

the proper way to handle it

is by not keeping your attention

on the hindrance we don't care what the

hindrance is

we don't even care where it came from

doesn't

what you do with what arises in the

present

matters if you fight with the hindrance

if you try to push it away if you try to

stop it from

bothering you

you can look forward to having it come

up over and over and over again

or you can use the six r's

and allow it to be there without keeping

your attention on it and relax

letting go of the craving

the craving is the i like it i don't

like it mind

when there's pain arising there's a i

don't like it mind

and that is craving as soon as you relax

then you smile and that improves your

awareness so you can catch that movement

of mind's attention more easily more

quickly

now one of the things that the

did not like to have happen during his

retreats and they didn't like

anybody smiling in their

retreat i've had some students that

they went to a go inca retreat after

they practiced with me

and they were sitting there smiling and

they got

warned one time you don't smile with

this meditation

and the second time they get told well

you have to leave you're not following

the directions

but the smile keeps your mind light

keeps your mind very alert

the joy that comes up is a gentler

kind of mind that

is quite

remarkable

then you bring that pure mind that

doesn't have any craving in it

and your light mind which has joy in it

back to your object and meditation

and stay with your object of meditation

as long as you can

so it's a real important aspect

that you understand craving

and how to let it go you

understand the importance

of the relaxed step now these

these students that were in india

one of the things that they said

after the first day i didn't experience

any pain

and they were like shocked

and i said well no you don't need pain

pain is not your friend i was told

when i was doing straight vipassana pain

is your friend it's showing you where

you have

an attachment yeah but it didn't tell me

what to do with that attachment once i

saw it

and i went through a lot of very intense

pains

when i ran across this kind of

meditation

i was completely enthusiastic about it

because it didn't have i didn't bring up

any pains

the whole time i was doing the

meditation

i had very severe headaches

when i was doing the walking meditation

oh very big headache

when i was doing the sitting meditation

sometimes it would go away but

quite often i had a headache all the

time

so when i started doing the 6rs

and that tension and tightness that was

in my head

didn't arise because i used the six r's

i became a real fan

i became very enthusiastic so much so

that i was going to sit for about a half

an hour just trying this method out the

6r method

and i wound up sitting for two hours

because it was so comfortable

i didn't have that pain that was

constantly

intense

with not only the physical

process of it but also the mental

process of it so there's a softening of

the mind

okay i'm gonna get back to this then

suppose a man needing heart wait wait a

minute

[Music]

okay

suppose a mandating heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood

came to a great tree standing possessed

of heartwood

passing over the heartwood and the

sapwood

he cut out he would cut

off the inner mark and take it away

thinking it was heartwood

then a man with good eyesight seeing

him might say this good man did not know

the heartwood

he only took away the inner mark

and thinking it was the heartwood

whatever

it was this good man had to make with

heartwood

his purpose will not be served

so two monks here

some clansmen goes forth out of faith

and has a lot of suffering

this monk is called one who has taken

the inner mark

of the body of life of the holy life

and stopped short after that

here some klansman goes forth out of

faith

in uh from the home life into

homelessness considering

i'm a victim of birth aging death

sorrow lamentation pain grief and

despair

i'm a victim of suffering pray to

suffering fury and

ending of this whole mass of suffering

can be known

when he was gone forth thus he acquires

gain

honor and renown he is not pleased with

gain honor and renowned and his

intention is not fulfilled

being diligent he achieves that the

attainment of virtue

is pleased with the attainment of virtue

but his intention is not fulfilled

being diligent he achieves

the attainment of collectiveness he is

pleased with the attainment of

collectedness

but his intention is not fulfilled

he does not on account of that lord

himself

and disparage others he does not become

intoxicated with that attainment of

concentration

he does not grow negligent and fall

into negligence being negligent he

achieves

knowledge and vision now this means

understanding and this also means going

through

the jammins because they're levels of

understanding

jhana does not mean concentration

it does not

each time you go through a jhana

you are experiencing a different type

of meditation because

with each genre there's different

feelings and different things that arise

while you're in that genre

and you had to teach

yourself how to go from one genre to the

too many times people over depend

on quote a teacher

too many times teachers

are people that have experienced jhana

in one stage or another and think they

really know what the meditation is about

without study

and that's the problem

to know what the buddha is teaching

and to truly understand it

first you do the meditation that's why i

tell people when they first

come i don't want you to read anything

while you're on retreat

when you get home after you have some

direct

experience and

probably 85 or 90 percent of the people

that practice

the 10-day retreat with me

they will have experience of at least

the fourth

genre and many many more

go much deeper than that

the fourth ghana is a very strong

equanimity balance of mind

and your understanding is such that you

can pick up

the matchman nikaya you read what the

majama nikaya

says and you'll understand what it says

because you have the knowledge and

vision of

the direct experience

so it's quite interesting that

in only 10 days because you are teaching

yourself and you have progress

you truly understand what the buddha was

talking about

now there's people that they would they

don't want to do

meditation but what they want to do is

just study they're they're the more

scholarly type

person

but this kind of

knowledge and vision that they gain just

from

the practice of study

the information that they have

is too slow when you get to certain

places in the meditation

you don't have

let's say you get to the fourth drama

you don't personally understand what

equanimity

is but intellectually you do

and eventually you'll figure out well

this must be

the fourth jhana

but when you're practicing the

meditation

and a lot of people that come to me

on the third or fourth day of the

retreat

do experience the fourth channel

and this is a major step

in the meditation and this is where

i get you off of loving kindness

meditating

meditation and start teaching the brahma

viharas to you

and your progress in the meditation

because your understanding of how this

process

works happens fairly quickly

every retreat that i give

if the people follow directions the way

that i gave them without adding

anything or try to say no

i'm not going to do it this way i want

to do it the way i already know how to

do it

their progress is very slow

but as i said when you follow the

directions that's given

by the third or fourth day of the

retreat you'll be able to experience

going into the fourth channel where your

mind has

real balance in it your mind doesn't get

excited doesn't get so emotional with

things

and your mind becomes much more clear

and this is why the buddha praised

getting into this

ghana

it's really quite entertainment

now when i was practicing straight

vipassana

of course we were told don't ever

do anything with jhana that's only for

developing your psychic abilities

and the fourth drama doesn't have

anything to do with the psychic

abilities they

depends on the person's personality

type whether they're going to experience

some

psychic abilities or not

but getting into the for into the fourth

genre is really a major

good thing and this is where your true

knowledge and vision

occur

on account he uh he is pleased with

that knowledge and vision and his

intention

is fulfilled on

on account of it he lauds himself and

disparages others

i live knowing and seeing

but others other monks

live unknowing and unseeing

he becomes intoxicated with that

knowledge and vision

grows negligent falls into negligent

in being negligent he still

lives in suffering

i wrote a book called life is meditation

meditation is life trying to get across

the idea that meditation is living

not just sitting and quieting mind

mindfulness is remembering to observe

how mind's attention

moves and it can

it's moving all the time and when you

use the 6rs your mind becomes clear and

you're able to see more clearly

how mind's attention moves

and how to let go of craving

so all of these things are kind of

interconnected

and it's important to understand that

knowledge and vision

is gained through doing the meditation

without

breaking a precept

suppose a man needing heartwood seeking

heartwood

wandering in search of heartwood came to

great great tree standing possessed of

heartwood

passing over its heartwood he would cut

off the sapwood

and take it away thinking it was

heartwood

then a man with good sight seeing him

might say

this good man did not know the heartwood

and still is live

in kneading heartwood

he cut off at sapwood and took it away

thinking it was heartwood

whatever it was this good man had to

make with heartwood

his purpose will not be full served

so here monks

some klansmen go forth out of faith from

the home life

into homelessness considering i'm a

victim of birth aging

and death of sorrow lamentation pain

grief and despair

i am a victim of suffering pray to

suffering

it's surely an ending of the whole mass

of suffering can be known

when he has gone forth thus he acquires

gain honor and renown he's not pleased

with the gain honor and renown

and his intention is not fulfilled

when he is diligent he achieves the

attainment of virtue he is pleased with

the attainment of virtue but his

intention is not fulfilled

when he is diligent and he achieves

achieves the attainment of collectedness

he is pleased with the attainment of

collectedness

but his intention is not fulfilled

when he is diligent and he achieves

knowledge and vision he's pleased with

that knowledge and vision

but his intention is not fulfilled

he does not on account of it lod himself

and disparage others

he does not become intoxicated with the

knowledge and vision

he does not grow negligent and fall into

negligence

being diligent he attains perpetual

liberation and it is impossible for that

monk to fall away

from the perpetual deliverance now this

is talking about getting

into the noble

sangha the noble sangha is anyone that's

become a sotapanna

a saket agami an onagami

or an arahat

these are called super mundane states

they're not states that ordinary people

experience

suppose a man needing heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood came to a great tree standing

possessed of heartwood

cutting off only its heartwood

he would take it away knowing it was

heartwood

then a man with good eyesight seeing him

might say

this good man knew the heartwood the

sapwood

the inner bark the outer bark and the

leaves and twigs

thus while meeting heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood

he came to a great tree standing

possessed of heartwood

and cutting off only his heartwood

he took it away knowing it was heartwood

whatever this good man had to make with

heartwood

his purpose has is well preserved

so to hear some clansmen

go forth out of faith

then he is diligent and attains

perpetual liberation

and it is impossible for that monk to

fall away

from perpetual deliverance

now when you become the sodapana that's

the lowest stage

that means that you're never going to

have any doubt

as to whether this practice works

properly or not

no doubt you know

that rights and rituals will not lead to

nibana

doesn't mean you can't do the rights and

rituals but you know that it's not going

to lead to nibana

also

you're going to see the impersonal

nature

of everything more and more clearly

and you're going to understand it more

and more deeply

and you're going to start to understand

the lengths of dependent origination and

how they actually

work dependent origination

is the backbone of the teaching

and it's extremely important

so this holy life monks does not have

gain honor and renown for its benefit

or the attainment of virtue for its

benefit

or the attainment of collectedness for

its benefit

or knowledge and vision for its benefit

but it is this unshakable deliverance of

mine

that is the goal of the holy life

it's heartwood and its end

that's what the blessed one said the

monks were satisfied and delighted in

the blessed one's words

so this gives you a good progression of

what you can expect

for yourself when you practice

the meditation

so do you have

any questions

it's on yes i'm sure

okay yes

elizabeth oh very good how are you

i'm very well thank you i had a question

it seemed that in the suta

um these were very sincere people these

were

and and the impression that i got in the

suta was how

easy it is to be deceived how easy

it is to become intoxicated with

something that you think

is the goal to lose sight of it

it was it was striking every time it was

wow it is a minefield

yes it is and

one of the things one of the reasons

that when you come and practice with me

i don't tell you what genre you're in

until after you get past the fourth

genre

is because you don't have that pride you

don't have that

interference of puffing up your chest

and say

well i'm at the second drana

or i'm at the third john i don't tell

you what genre you're in for that

very reason when i was practicing

straight pipasana there were still

people that were practicing

jhana practice and oh you were some kind

of special person if you got into a

jhana

and they they would always walk around

with their chest puffed up

so i didn't like that so i wouldn't tell

people what channel they were in

and it doesn't really matter it matters

to me

what genre you're in so i know how to

tell you things

but if you have a decent teacher

he's not going to allow that to occur in

you

okay

thank you bonte

anybody else

yes this is christoph i'm sophia's

husband

yeah and um i have a quick question

about

uh craving you mentioned that

craving is the i like it i don't like it

mind

does that mean that because we'd like

something or don't like something

that it's not quite like that oh okay

when i say it's i like it i don't like

it mind i'm talking about feeling

whatever feeling arises if it's a

painful feeling

i don't like it and i want it to stop

if it's a pleasant feeling i like it and

i want it to continue

right now there is

something that's called chanda

chanda means wholesome

desire now if you want to attain nibana

that's called chanda you point your mind

in that direction and you don't get

caught up in the i want

anymore you're just pointing your mind

in the direction you want to go i want

to attain nibana someday

that is chanda

so and that's something that gets

confused quite a bit

okay uh it seems that an awful lot of

people

try to be over

particular with

desire okay they don't understand

desire so much

i can make a determination which is

chanda which is a wholesome desire

to go into

this genre for a period of time

that's a wholesome desire and that's not

something that you're attached to

it doesn't have craving in it it's just

learning how to point your mind in that

direction

when you get to the place where you're

practicing the six

directions now that means the desire

to put your point all beings

in front of you and then all beings

behind you

and all beings to the right to the left

above and below

and then you put that chanda to work

in all directions at the same time

now that's desire but that's wholesome

desire

do you understand so yeah

and just do i understand correctly if

it's kind of the difference

is one is chanda and the other one is

the control

freak right okay the wanting to control

okay that's that's the

the evil one of meditators

thank you and it's easy to fall into

especially when you have a real

pain in your backside or your arm or

your leg and you just can't stand it

it's a real easy one to fall into

and move and try to get rid of that pain

i i was just told

this week somebody from india called and

told me

that one of their students

just found out they're in

uh the four the fourth stage of cancer

and they were going to be dying very

soon

and they asked what can you what can i

help them with so that they can

die peacefully and there is two things

that i told them they had to do

one is start working on forgiveness

forgive

yourself for causing someone else pain

forgive that that person for causing

pain to you

and if you can do it in person that's

best

or you can do it when you're sitting in

meditation

the other thing that is extremely

important especially with people that

have

cancer they have high

acidity in their body in the blood

and what they need to do is

take bicarbonate of soda that's

uh baking soda

a spoonful in a glass of water in the

morning a spoonful and a glass of water

in the evening

it doesn't have to be a full glass it

can be a half half full

and this is an alkaline

and it it takes away the food for the

cancer

so that gives it a chance to

overcome that problem now i was just

reading about it on the internet

and they said that this is one of the

reasons that

very few people died of cancer before

the 1700s

was the reason was that that they were

giving them baking soda and then

overcomes that so it's quite interesting

i had another student that quite some

years ago

she was on her deathbed the doctor said

within six weeks to two months she was

going to be dead with cancer

and somebody took me to see her and i

did some chanting and that sort of thing

for her

and she asked if there's anything that

she could do

and i said well you need to forgive

all the pains that you've gone through

the pain of the

physical pain forgive the pain for being

there

forgive other people for causing you

pain forgive yourself for causing other

people

pain and

last year now this was

i think it was 2010 when i when i

saw her i just saw her one time i didn't

know what was happening

after that

last year she came and she donated this

road to me

she was still alive

so the forgiveness and the baking soda

is a very good combination there's no

guarantees that it's going to work

but it certainly can help it can help

have your mind be more at ease and

accepting

thank you thank you you're very welcome

anybody else's question

hello bonte yes

so i have this question relating to that

so how do you know if you've fallen half

asleep

or if you've entered one of the formless

dramas well you're aware

are you aware while you're half asleep

it's one of the signs of getting into

neither perception or non-perception

but you will get into a place where

there is

nothing absolutely nothing there's no

movement of mind's attention

now you're taking mind as your object of

meditation

and if you see your mind starting to

come up with a thought

then use you relax and come back to that

quiet

mind

okay make sense

oh good yeah

so it's like uh if you see that

you have a thought forming or if you

some sense like some movement within

your mind

right then you relax

and that's in essence what you're doing

is the six

hours and it can happen automatically

sometimes you relax

and stay with the quiet mind

sharpen your mindfulness you should be

sitting longer right now

if you have the time three hours

is a good amount of time to sit

oh cool

[Laughter]

and of course if you want to sit four

that's up to you

right but any less than three

it takes a long time for the

uh purification of mind but when you get

up to three hours continually

without moving

that is very very useful

right

thank you monty okay and again i want to

remind everyone

if you're running across a place that

you don't understand

and you feel like you need to take a

retreat but you don't want to quit your

job

right now to do that you don't have the

vacation time

you can sign up for an online

retreat now the online retreat

is you get up in the morning

you say the precepts do a little

ceremony

then you sit for an hour

during the day when you're back at your

job

you relax and smile

a lot

at lunchtime if you have some time

then if you want to do walking

meditation stay with your object of

meditation while you're walking

when you get home there is a

questionnaire that david has developed

where you tell us exactly what's

happening with your meditation

we will answer it

and then we suggest that you listen to

one of the domino talks that we have

selected

and if you have time before you go to

bed and you're not too sleepy

sit for another hour

but smiling during the day is very

important with your daily activities

because that helps sharpen your

mindfulness

so that when you do the sitting your

mind is

a lot more alert and

as i said we will give you all the

answers we

we can to help you after we find out

what your practice is it's very

important that you fill out

the questionnaire okay

and we're starting to have more and more

people

doing online retreat especially with

this virus that's around

[Music]

if you feel like you want to just take

the diamond do that

instead of sitting home and twiddling

your thumbs you can do an online retreat

that would be very good

okay and say hello

yes i have a question yes

related to these strange times

um my mum is 98 years old

and in a care home about 15 miles

15 minutes drive from here but i've not

been able to see her since february

and um phone calls with

uh become ever more difficult

as she her mind unravels

uh i'm getting quite upset you know

yeah um

i'm wondering what i can do for well

yeah there's something i want everybody

to understand

and that is you are never

hopeless if you want to help

spend time having her in your mind

and radiating loving kindness to her

her mind will settle down she won't be

so excited

and it can help with memory sometimes

my mother was 93 when she died

the last six weeks of her her being

alive

i spent with her every day sending

loving and kind

thoughts to her on the day that she did

die there was a lot of family that was

we knew that it was getting close and a

lot of family came and they were just

sitting

around in the room waiting for my mother

to die

and i started radiating equanimity

so everybody had a balanced mind

now these were all

my family is very strongly christian

and that's fine i don't care what

religion they are they all

felt the equanimity and they knew that i

was

i was sending it to them

after she died there's about 10 minutes

that everybody was quiet

and then one of the relatives said i

don't know whether to

smile and be glad or cry

and i said well now that she's gone

you don't have to worry about it

whatever expression the grief comes out

for you

accept the grief without pushing it away

so instead of thinking uh and having

a aversion thoughts to what's happening

right now

send loving and kind thoughts not only

to yourself

but to other members of the family

everybody is feeling the same way you

are

so you send them loving and kind

thoughts and their mind will start to be

more balanced and accepting

thinking about your mother and her

situation with aversion

doesn't help anybody

so you radiate loving kindness to her

and i'll suggest this too

take uh like a quart jar

of clean water

and hold it while you're sending loving

and kind thoughts to your

to your mother and your family members

and if you feel anything coming on a

cold

or you start feeling not as healthy as

you could

start drinking that water water

holds energy they've

they've proved that a long time ago in

in japan

and you're putting loving kindness back

into your body

and that makes everything more healthy

and i'll explain this too uh when i was

malaysia there was a woman that was

pregnant

that she wanted me to uh

give her a blessing and i i

[Music]

took a bottle of water and i held it

while i was doing the chanting and then

i was

radiating loving kindness for about a

half an hour

and i gave her that water and i told her

anytime that

the baby in in her body

became over anxious

and and moving around a lot take some of

that water and just massage the baby

and the baby would calm down very

quickly after that

and when she finally had the baby

it came with very i know there's a lot

of pain in childbirth

but it wasn't as long as it had been

with

other children that she'd had it was

fairly fast there was only a few hours

that she was in

labor and when the baby came out the

baby came out smiling

and it did really odd things now i know

a lot of babies

when they when they're born the first

six months or eight months they're

crying all the time

but she did weird things

this little girl

would sleep all night without crying

and that was very amazing

and the first time i went to go see her

she saw me and she put her hands

together like this

after that it got real popular and a lot

of pregnant women were coming

and practicing with me and i gave them

water

[Music]

so i there was 27 or 30

different families

that i called them my kids

they're they're grown now so that's

they're they were my kids because i gave

them the water and that helped them to

have

a happier life more accepting

so do that and send some water to her

okay thank you and tell her take a sip

every day

now as she starts to run out wait till

she gets about a quarter full of

say a quart jar pint jar whatever

and put more distilled water in it

and shake it 15 times and that will

re-energize

all of that water so it doesn't run out

okay

[Music]

and that that will help her mind be more

peaceful and calm

and it will help your mind be more

peaceful

that'll be good okay thank you banker

you're welcome anything else

hi bunty hey how are you doing

i'm doing well thank you good how are

you

real good it's good to see you

yeah um so i have a actually a related

question to steve's question

okay i've noticed you know popping up in

in the sutures occasionally

the uh uh parents are sort of

placed in a special high regard um

in the in the buddhist tradition right

and like i've i've read the the tagalog

a couple times and it talks about it

there um

yeah i was wondering if because you know

this has come up

in my life especially because now i'm um

since the pandemic started i've been

staying with my parents

um and so i was wondering if you could

talk a little bit about

sort of uh what um

what the responsibilities are to parents

like from the buddhist perspective or

from your perspective

well from my perspective the more love

you can give them the better

okay so every day put

put aside 10 or 15 minutes and just

radiate loving kindness to them wherever

they happen

to be

and there are times when parents have to

tough and you don't really understand it

yourself and you

start holding a grudge towards them

forgive yourself for not understanding

forgive them

for not understanding

[Music]

and there was

a russian man that his dialect of

russian

they didn't have the word forgiveness in

so we came up with acceptance

okay everybody has a bad day every now

and then then they're

gruff and they they've just gone through

you don't understand what their problem

was

so you have a tendency to take it

personally

and and get mad at them and that sort of

thing so forgive yourself for that

and forgive them

also laugh

with them

get them to laugh okay

it's real important

have fun with your parents even though

your parents can be

strong with discipline and disappointed

that you didn't follow their advice and

all of that

you forgive them for that

but don't take it personally don't take

as they hate me

they don't they truly love you they

don't know how to express it sometimes

so you forgive them for not knowing it's

okay

one of the major mistakes that almost

everybody has

is they when they're around adults they

think and they'll

adults know everything and

geez they're just like you so you don't

know everything so

why do you think they should know

everything

well you can follow their advice if it

seems good to follow

but don't argue with them about it

okay send them loving kindness and send

them forgiveness

that will make life much more easy for

you

okay okay well okay thank you so much

you're welcome thank you

anybody else have a question

okay let's share some errors oh yes okay

okay i wanted to wait to see if there's

no other questions and jump in

because we've already asked one um

this is connected to the advice you gave

steve about the holy water the

loving kindness water right

seems

licking his fur out of his skin to the

extent that the skin is bare

and i was wondering if this we could use

this for

helping our cat too because you know

of course the doctor would give him

medicine but we can see that it's

some sort of a mental i would take a

little bit of water and put in his

drinking water

and every day give him a massage

him or her i don't know which kind of

him

okay

male cats especially love to get robbed

yes so just take some and while you're

doing that while you're touching him

give him loving kindness

yes okay

okay thank you you bet

every being wants the same thing

all beings want to be loved

so our job is to oblige them and give it

to them

okay thank you thank you

okay anybody else ante it's elizabeth i

was just gonna say

that i have a i have a two-year-old

dog and um he sits with me

in my meditation room and he has a

special

chair i'm not exaggerating and

he um all i have to do is

you know put my finger to my mouth like

and i swear he loves to be

in the room when i'm meditating

absolutely

goes into the deepest sleep

i'll be meditating and i'll hear

and i'm like and he's already been up

he's like should be active

it's just i'm and i'm not trying to be

trite

he's very drawn and attracted to

me when i'm sitting in meditation

yeah i'll tell you another dog story

i had a dog he just

appeared one day and he was

part pit bull and part um

[Music]

labrador

smiley yeah

he demanded to be in the room

whenever i gave a diamond talk and if we

i mean he didn't show up and we closed

the doors

he was sit outside the door and start

howling until

he couldn't hear me talk so we had to

let him in

and he was very insistent about that he

and he was right at my feet

and he would listen

and he really liked it

and he was our protector dog

now we're in the forest and we have some

cabins

up in the forest and sometimes

we have women that would come and we put

them in one of those cabins

he would stay with them the whole time

they he would get uh he would see that

after the domino talk

the woman would come out and go to her

cabin so he would stay right outside the

door

if she got up during the night had to go

to the bathroom he would be with her the

whole time

and he would wait at the door until she

got done and then walked back with her

and then at 5 30 she would come down

for the uh morning service

he was right there with her the whole

time

he knew that that it was his job to take

care of

anybody that had any fear he would be

right there and help him

quite an amazing dog and his name was

smiley

smiley yeah i called him smiley because

the first time i met him i

started petting him and he started

smiling

i couldn't think of any other name for

him

that's a beautiful he had he had a great

smile he really did

and very very intelligent

what kind of comment does a dog have

to get to live with

a buddhist monk who is actually living

the buddhist teachings

good karma right there that's good karma

yeah

and they gen the dogs generally even if

they've been mistreated

after a period of time they mellow out

i was just telling you about smiley

he was smart except

uh he liked to chase cars with the

wheels running moving

and he got run over and died

he was reborn in uh

to seat to heaven

is very unusual for an animal to be

reborn into

a heavenly realm very unusual

and some of the people there they

started seeing all of a sudden this

black dog was running around

and he would he would sometimes come

visit me

and we had another black dog and i

thought that black dog was

right beside me and i put my hand down

and i put my hand through him

and then i'd turn and look and look down

and watch him

run through the door so he came and

visited for quite a while

i haven't seen him for a long time now

he might have changed into a human being

which happens

wow thank you for sharing that story

[Music]

yeah we have a lot of animals around

here

um i'm i'm missing

one one that i haven't seen this year

and that that's a groundhog

you sign yes

agree oh good well i have to run outside

they're great fun to be around and they

understand what you talk when you're

talking to them

they won't run away they'll but if you

get too close to them then they'll start

to turn around and go away

but i like watching them run because

they're real

fat in the in the hind end and they kind

of waddle

it's it's real fun to watch them

[Music]

so i'll have to go out and make friends

with the new

new groundhog

so is there any other questions

okay let's hear some merit now

may suffering ones be suffering free and

the fear struck fearless be

may the grieving shed all grief and may

all beings find relief

may all beings share this merit that we

have thus

acquired for the acquisition of all

kinds of happiness

may beings inhabiting space and earth

gave us and not as a mighty power share

this merit of ours may they long protect

the buddhist dispensation

[Music]

so you all have fun and have a good week

thank you so much bronte okay thank you

bandy

oh you're welcome thank you see you

wednesday

oh yeah that's yeah okay

bye everybody david's my calendar he

keeps up with these things

you

[Music]

i hope everybody's had a good week

this particular suta is one that i like

very much

because it it spells out

the different stages that happen

during the time of the buddha

it's a different stages for monks and

what they

are striving to attain so

that's what i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living at roger gaha

on the mountain vulture peak

it was soon after devadatta had left

they're referring to david gotta the

blessed one

addressed amongst us

monks here some clansmen go forth out of

faith

from the home life into homelessness

considering

i'm a victim of birth aging and death of

sorrow

lamentation pain grief and despair

i'm a victim of suffering a prey to

suffering

surely an ending of this whole mass of

suffering can be known

when he has gone forth thus he acquires

gain

honor and renown

he's pleased with gain honor and

renowned as

in and his intention is fulfilled

that's what happened to dave adata

and there are some monks

that that's all they're interested in

is becoming popular

to me that's a very low course of action

and it feeds the ego so you don't get

as good a teaching from somebody that's

just looking for gain

and honor and renown

on account of which he lodges himself

and disparages other

i have gained honor and renown

but these other monks are unknown of no

account

he becomes intoxicated with

gain honor and renown grows negligent

falls into negligence and being

negligent he lives in suffering

suppose a man needing heartwood seeking

heartwood

wandering in search of heartwood came to

a great tree

standing possessed of heartwood

passing over its heartwood its sapwood

its inner bark its outer bark

it would cut off its twigs and leaves

and

take them away thinking they were

heartwood

then a man with good sight seeing

might say this good man

did not know the heartwood the sapwood

the inner bark the outer bark

or the twigs and leaves thus

while kneading heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood he came to a great treat a

standing possessed of heartwood

passing over its heartwood it sapped

with its inner

bark and outer bark he cut off the twigs

and leaves and took them away

thinking they were heartwood

whatever it was this good man had

to make with heartwood his purpose will

not be

served so to

monks some clansmen go forth out of

faith but they still

live in suffering

this monk is called one who has taken

the twigs and leaves of the holy life

and

stopped short of that

here some clansmen go forth out of faith

from the home life into homelessness

considering

i'm a victim of birth aging and death of

sorrow lamentation

pain grief and despair i'm a victim of

suffering afraid to suffering

surely the ending of this whole mass of

suffering can be known

in in my experience of being a monk for

35 years

and uh practicing

meditation a few years before that

i came to the realization and that the

reason that i

started looking for meditation at all

was i was suffering i was suffering a

lot i got heavy into

depression and i was looking for a way

out

and all of all of the people that i've

ever talked to

about buddhism that was their goal

that was the orig the origination of the

start of the practice

now you have to have some curiosity

to start looking

but the pain was in my case the pain was

so great i had to find

some way out of it or i was going to

commit suicide i hadn't come

i hadn't thought about suicide

quite yet but i knew that i was heading

that way

i think all of you have experienced

something like that

at the start of your practice you were

unsatisfied with what

life was presenting itself with and

there was a lot of suffering

and trying to get out of suffering

in in america when i first started that

was

in the mid 70s

that's when there was a lot of uh

whole magic mushrooms and lsd

and a lot of pot and things like that

that people were

taking so that they wouldn't experience

so much suffering

now i have run across some people

that come here and do a retreat

and then when they get off retreat they

immediately

light up a joint

not understanding that they are

hurting themselves more than they're

helping

when you take the precepts

be serious about it take the precepts

with the understanding that you're going

to keep the precepts

without breaking any of them

why because when you keep your precepts

without breaking them

your mind will naturally tend towards

peace and tranquility and when you start

doing the meditation your progress

is very fast

now i've given you some in the past

a few talks i've given you

the reason that this is like that

whenever you break a precept

you're

interfering with a peaceful calm

alert mind

even some something as trivial as a

little white lie

can affect you negatively

and you have to purify yourself from

that

before you're going to progress with

your meditation

now i've been with students it took a

long time for them to understand what

the meditation was about

i've had students for over 30 years that

when they got off retreat they went back

to the way they were

breaking precepts and using foul

language and things like that

breaking the precept of no

alcohol

now there are some medicines that

they have alcohol in them

those are called medicines not

uh drinking alcohol to exist so

it it clouds the way you think

i know that there are doctors that

recommend

as you get older to take a little maybe

a half an ounce or an ounce of wine

before you go to sleep

and you sleep more soundly and that's

considered medicine

but smoking a joint after uh

doing a retreat or any time

you're hurting yourself

please i want to warn you against doing

that

um dave adata was never

he became a monk under the buddha

and he was from a family that had great

merit

he was a buddha's cousin

but he was continually breaking precepts

especially with

[Music]

alcoholic drinks and

they had just as many drugs

during the time of the buddha as we do

now they give them different names now

but they still they

they had roots that they say if you take

this root and you

you hold it in your mouth you're going

to be very happy

and there are things like that but they

they really

cloud your mind so it's best not to do

that sort of thing

okay when a monk has gone forth thus he

acquires

gain honor and renown is not pleased

with gain honor and renown

and his intention is not fulfilled

he does not on account of it laud

himself and disparage others

he does not become intoxicated

with that gain honor and renown

he does not grow negligent and fall

into negligence

being diligent he achieves the

attainment of virtue

keeping the precepts this is

something for monks it's something

that's done very early in their practice

or before they even take on the practice

he's pleased with the attainment of

virtue

and his intention is fulfilled

on account of that he lodges himself and

disparages others

i'm virtuous of good character

but these other monks are immoral of

evil character he becomes intoxicated

with the attainment of virtue

grows negligent falls into negligence

and being negligent he lives

in suffering so even keeping your

precepts

without breaking them you still can have

a lot of suffering

why because you haven't purified your

mind enough

suppose a man knitting heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

hardwood

came to a great tree standing possessed

of heartwood

passing over its heart wood its sapwood

its inner bark he would cut off

the outer bark and take it away

thinking it was heartwood then a man

with good sight

seeing him might say this good man did

not know the heartwood

and only went away taking the

outer bark thus while

kneading heartwood he cut off the outer

bark and took it away

thinking it was heartwood whatever it

was

this good man had to make with heartwood

his purpose will not be served

so too monks here

some clansmen goes forth out of faith

still lives in suffering

this monk is called one who has taken

the outer bark of the holy life and

stopped

short with that

a lot of people

have an idea that all monks are

um they're supposed to be very

virtuous and the key word here is

supposed to be

but they still have a lot of stuff to go

through

they can still have their angers and

their greeds and that sort of thing

as they develop more and more

then they are able to let go

of those sort of things and become more

virtuous

all the time but a lot of laymen they

they put this label he's a monk how can

he do something like that

tell a lie or do something that's not

really appropriate for the monks

so you have to understand

that being a monk the first five years

that you become a monk you're supposed

to stay

with your uppachaya and upachaya

is a spiritual father

and he's going to train you over five

years

so that you can develop that uplifted

mind all the time

and you understand more and more what

the buddhist teaching is all about

and keeping the precepts

they they know very well what all of

that means

but if they don't stay for five years

then there's a wrong idea of

they're taking on the robes and there

can be a lot of mistakes that are made

and they don't know as as mistakes

one of the things that's happening in

the buddhist countries

as foreigners start to go

to these buddhist countries and become

monks

is they just ordain the monks

and let them go off on their own do

anything they want to do

so there's not this deep understanding

what a monk actually is

and how much they need to

spend time not only chanting but

visiting other monks

and talking with them about dhamma

so there's the wedding down

of the dhamma that's happening right now

that's kind of dangerous

now this practice that i've

i've been giving you the six r's

will purify your mind

and it will purify your mind so much

that you can become

a noble one

and the noble sangha

it doesn't matter whether you have robes

or or you are a layman

the way you join the noble sangha

is by experiencing

becoming at least a sodapana

now just because you become a sodapana

doesn't mean

that you automatically you're going to

be keeping the precepts all the time

you can still break a precept

but when you break a precept you feel

very very guilty

and that guilty feeling

is you know that you broke a precept

and you want to purify your mind

because if you break a precept and then

you go sit in meditation you're going to

have a lot of hindrances come up

you need to purify your mind

and there's different ways of doing that

one you go to a monk if there's one

available

and tell him that you broke a precept

and he will give you the precepts again

with a strong determination not to do

that again

[Music]

that's one way of purifying your mind

so you don't have that guilty feeling of

breaking a precept

excuse me

if there is no monk

around that you can confess your your

breaking of a precept

then you go to a spiritual friend

someone who truly

understands the essence of keeping your

your precepts very good while you

are living your life

and you confess it to a friend

one of the reasons that hindrances

arise is because

in the past in our recent past

or it could be past lifetimes we broke

precepts

as soon as you break a precept you have

a guilty mind

i shouldn't have done that

i had a lot of friends that that were in

wars

and they actually killed someone

and they said that that guilty feeling

never goes away

you look at life much differently

after doing a heinous act like killing

someone else

i highly recommend that they

start with forgiveness of themself

and when that person comes up in their

mind

they look them straight in the eye and

ask them

them to forgive him

and he forgives himself for doing that

act

and that's the only way that

you can really purify your mind

now during the time of the buddha

there was a monk

he was called angulimala

and his teacher

had told him that he had to go out and

kill a thousand people and cut off one

of their fingers

to prove that he had done that

now he wound up killing 999

people

[Music]

and he was a scourge

of a a certain area

in india people were afraid to go into

that forest because he was there

and he got a big reputation for killing

people

the angulimala

mala means necklace anguli

is finger so he was

named finger necklace

when it got time to kill

the one thousandth person to fulfill his

teachers

task the teacher was not a very virtuous

person

the angulimala

thought that he might for his thousandth

one

he would go out and kill his mother

the buddha saw that that was his

intention

that he was going to go out and try to

kill his mother

and he got in the way

he appeared right

as angulimala was planning

the the killing of his mother

and the buddha started walking

very slowly away

and angulimala was running after him

with the intention of killing him

but he couldn't catch up to the buddha

who was walking very slowly and he was

running as fast as he could

and he never caught up with the buddha

finally he stopped and he said

monk please

stop

and the buddha kept walking and turned

and said to him

i already have stopped

and angulimala said but you're still

walking

but the buddha said i have stopped

letting craving dictate things that

happened to me

in my life

now i there there's

a big emphasis on craving

and everybody's supposed to know what

craving is

and how to recognize it

and to my shock and dismay when i spent

12 years in asia i couldn't find

one person that came up with

the definition that really made sense

for craving

it talks about craving but it doesn't

tell you what the definition is

and of the four noble truths they talk

about

exactly how to recognize craving

know what it is understand it

how to let it go and

take the path that leads to the

cessation of the suffering

of craving

so anguli stopped on gulimala stopped

walking and so did the buddha

and then they started discussing dhamma

and anguli mala saw the error of his

ways

and he

eventually became a sodapana

just by talking with the buddha and

getting his

his mind more clear

and then he ordained

and became a buddhist monk

now about that time

the king pasanati of kosala

was sending out an army and they were

going to rid

rid the area of angulimala

so he went to the buddha first and

started talking with him

about the problems they were having with

angulimala and how he was killing so

many people

and andrew limala was sitting

in the group of sangha that was

listening to what

king kosala

[Music]

and the buddha said

what would you think if i told you

that angulimala

is sitting in this room

and the hair on the back of king

pasanati

it stood on its end

and then the buddha introduced him

as this is the monk

that was angulimala

and he has given up his

his killing ways

so the king took the bounty off of

angulimala

and allowed him to become be a monk

on golimala that one of the things that

happens when you're a monk

in in asia at that time

all the monks went out on arms around to

collect food for the day

then they would come back and eat it

but angulimala was re was recognized

as a uh a killer

and people were very angry at him and it

says in the text

that strays uh

rocks and stones and sticks would

uh hit him and he'd come back with blood

all over his head

and he kind of asked the buddha if

you could have the other monks go out on

ams round and get food for him and the

buddha said no

you have to face this

eventually angulimala became an arahat

and he's he's one of the uh

the group of 80

uh special arahats

it's real interesting if you if you go

to burma

it's right by mingun temple

there's another temple there that has a

marble statues of all 80

of the maha haras

maha means great or big

and angulimala is there i saw i saw

what the artist thought of him it was

carved out of marble

and he had really an angelic face

it really looked good more

more beautiful than a lot of the other

ones

anyway

so even if

anyone winds up

killing they have a guilty mind

or stealing or wrong sexual activity

or telling lies and gossip

or taking drugs and alcohol

they feel guilty by doing that

and this guilty feeling is the cause

of the wrong belief in a personal self

every time you break a precept it causes

your mind

to store up

that wrong belief i am that

and when you use the 6rs

which is the eight-fold path

you

your mind from that guilty feeling

and you finally let it go and when you

your mind becomes very clear and very

bright and you start seeing things

as they actually occur

now this seeing

anata in everything

the impersonal nature

means that you have a pure mind

at that time

that is how you achieve the cessation

of suffering

because you're not taking anything

personally anymore

you have more balance in your mind you

have more

true understanding of how this process

works

as we go along in the suta you'll see

that there's

different steps that monks go through

and this one monk that they're talking

about

he was very satisfied when he when he

gained virtue and he didn't continue on

and that's like taking the outer bark of

a tree

that has heartwood in it so he's not

gaining as much as he would truly like

to gain

here's some klansman goes forth out of

faith from the home life

into homelessness considering i'm a

victim of age

birth aging and death of sorrow

lamentation

pain grief and despair

i'm a victim of suffering pray to

suffering

surely ending and ending of this whole

mass of suffering can be known

when he's gone forth thus he acquires

gain honor and renown he's not pleased

with gain honor and renown

and his intention is not fulfilled

being diligent he achieves the

attainment

of virtue he's pleased with the

attainment of virtue but his intention

is not fulfilled

he does not on account of it laud

himself

and disparage others he does not become

intoxicated with that attainment of

virtue

he does not grow negligent and fall into

negligence

being negligent he achieves the

attainment of

collectedness he is pleased with the

attainment of collectedness and his

intention is fulfilled

now collectedness is a word that i

substitute for concentration

the word concentration is way too

misunderstood

as a result i don't like to use it

because

then almost everybody that does a kind

of concentration

winds up putting an awful lot of energy

into staying

in that that state

but when they come out

their concentration fades and

they have entrances coming back and they

haven't purified their mind of

hindrances

mind is pure well it's in the

concentration

state but when the concentration

diminishes

then the hindrances come back stronger

than they they would have

if you hadn't meditated at all

so it's real important for you to

realize

that collectedness

there's stillness of mind just like

there is with concentration

although it's not as deep

your mind is very composed your mind is

very alert and you're

able to see how

hindrances arise and how to let them go

by using the six r's

you see this over a period of time and

it's very

important that you understand this

this difference between the kinds of

meditation that there

are

when i was in india this year i was

there for

five months

i happened to

meet an awful lot of people that had

practiced

going to style meditation which was a

one-pointed concentration

and the goeinka style meditation

had a tendency to bring up

painful feelings in mind and body

and galenco was very big on pushing them

pushing the students so they would try

harder

and the more they tried

the worse the pains became

now the thing with pain is that

there's a natural aversion to pain

it doesn't matter whether it's mental or

physical

there is the aversion of that being

there

and the more you keep your attention on

that the bigger and more intense that

pain becomes

so when they came and started practicing

with me

and they started seeing that if you use

the six hours properly

and you don't have to sit on the floor

with it in a painful posture

you can sit in a chair and be

comfortable

their progress in the meditation was

very fast because they had developed

that kind of concentration

but they had to put in

the six r's

and the smile in their meditation

i get criticized a lot by a lot of

different people because

they are starting to go back into the

suttas now and they say well where does

it say that the buddha said you had to

smile

well if you look at a buddha image

you see the artist is trying to show you

that the buddhas experience

a kind of joy it's called all pervading

joy

this kind of joy has a great deal of

equanimity

with it

but your mind is light

anytime you try to push

away a hindrance to stop a hindrance

from coming up

you keep your attention on that

hindrance

and it gets bigger and more intense

i know because i had 20 years of

practice with

doing exactly that

straight vipassana meditation

tells you to note a hindrance

until it goes away now that's not

following

what right effort is in the eightfold

path

so when i would teach

how to use the six r's

the uh people that had been doing

goeinka meditation they would come

shocked at i didn't have any pain

well they were doing two things in india

everybody thinks that the only kind of

meditation you can do is

sitting on the floor

oh we've been sitting on the floor ever

since we were little children

fine but you're always moving around

because pain start to come up and then

you move so you don't feel the pain

so when people start to realize

that you use

right effort or harmonious practice as i

like to call it

that means one you notice that there's

something unwholesome that arose

there is a hindrance it has tension and

tightness in it

it pulls your attention away from your

object of meditation

the second part of right effort

is release

don't keep your attention on the

hindrance

as soon as you recognize that that

hindrance

is there you don't keep your attention

on it

you smile and you come back to your

object the meditation

and that hindrance will go away very

quickly

you relax when that hindrance

arose it arose because craving was in it

i am that i am the sadness i am this

feeling i

am this pain wherever it has to be i am

this

itch and i don't like it and i want it

to change

i i i i taking is false belief in the

personal self

so now

you relax and you let go

of that distraction you don't pay

attention to it at all

that distraction doesn't necessarily go

away by

itself or go away completely

it might still be there depending on the

amount of attachment you have on it

but you go through the six r's you

recognize

you release the distraction you

relax you re-smile

smiling is an important part of the

practice

why the more you smile

with the practice the more you smile

with your daily

activities

the sharper your mindfulness becomes

you're able to see more and more clearly

how these things arise

what happens first what happens after

that what happens after that

and you start to recognize that this is

a part of an

impersonal process you didn't ask that

that pain or sadness or guilt whatever

it happens to be

you didn't ask that to come up it came

up by itself

what you do with what

in the arises it

happened if you

with what happening right which is what

most of the goeinka people

were doing you can look forward to that

pain

coming up over and over and over again

until you learn

that's not the proper way to handle it

the proper way to handle it

is by not keeping your attention

on the hindrance we don't care what the

hindrance is

we don't even care where it came from

doesn't

what you do with what arises in the

present

matters if you fight with the hindrance

if you try to push it away if you try to

stop it from

bothering you

you can look forward to having it come

up over and over and over again

or you can use the six r's

and allow it to be there without keeping

your attention on it and relax

letting go of the craving

the craving is the i like it i don't

like it mind

when there's pain arising there's a i

don't like it mind

and that is craving as soon as you relax

then you smile and that improves your

awareness so you can catch that movement

of mind's attention more easily more

quickly

now one of the things that the

did not like to have happen during his

retreats and they didn't like

anybody smiling in their

retreat i've had some students that

they went to a go inca retreat after

they practiced with me

and they were sitting there smiling and

they got

warned one time you don't smile with

this meditation

and the second time they get told well

you have to leave you're not following

the directions

but the smile keeps your mind light

keeps your mind very alert

the joy that comes up is a gentler

kind of mind that

is quite

remarkable

then you bring that pure mind that

doesn't have any craving in it

and your light mind which has joy in it

back to your object and meditation

and stay with your object of meditation

as long as you can

so it's a real important aspect

that you understand craving

and how to let it go you

understand the importance

of the relaxed step now these

these students that were in india

one of the things that they said

after the first day i didn't experience

any pain

and they were like shocked

and i said well no you don't need pain

pain is not your friend i was told

when i was doing straight vipassana pain

is your friend it's showing you where

you have

an attachment yeah but it didn't tell me

what to do with that attachment once i

saw it

and i went through a lot of very intense

pains

when i ran across this kind of

meditation

i was completely enthusiastic about it

because it didn't have i didn't bring up

any pains

the whole time i was doing the

meditation

i had very severe headaches

when i was doing the walking meditation

oh very big headache

when i was doing the sitting meditation

sometimes it would go away but

quite often i had a headache all the

time

so when i started doing the 6rs

and that tension and tightness that was

in my head

didn't arise because i used the six r's

i became a real fan

i became very enthusiastic so much so

that i was going to sit for about a half

an hour just trying this method out the

6r method

and i wound up sitting for two hours

because it was so comfortable

i didn't have that pain that was

constantly

intense

with not only the physical

process of it but also the mental

process of it so there's a softening of

the mind

okay i'm gonna get back to this then

suppose a man needing heart wait wait a

minute

[Music]

okay

suppose a mandating heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood

came to a great tree standing possessed

of heartwood

passing over the heartwood and the

sapwood

he cut out he would cut

off the inner mark and take it away

thinking it was heartwood

then a man with good eyesight seeing

him might say this good man did not know

the heartwood

he only took away the inner mark

and thinking it was the heartwood

whatever

it was this good man had to make with

heartwood

his purpose will not be served

so two monks here

some clansmen goes forth out of faith

and has a lot of suffering

this monk is called one who has taken

the inner mark

of the body of life of the holy life

and stopped short after that

here some klansman goes forth out of

faith

in uh from the home life into

homelessness considering

i'm a victim of birth aging death

sorrow lamentation pain grief and

despair

i'm a victim of suffering pray to

suffering fury and

ending of this whole mass of suffering

can be known

when he was gone forth thus he acquires

gain

honor and renown he is not pleased with

gain honor and renowned and his

intention is not fulfilled

being diligent he achieves that the

attainment of virtue

is pleased with the attainment of virtue

but his intention is not fulfilled

being diligent he achieves

the attainment of collectiveness he is

pleased with the attainment of

collectedness

but his intention is not fulfilled

he does not on account of that lord

himself

and disparage others he does not become

intoxicated with that attainment of

concentration

he does not grow negligent and fall

into negligence being negligent he

achieves

knowledge and vision now this means

understanding and this also means going

through

the jammins because they're levels of

understanding

jhana does not mean concentration

it does not

each time you go through a jhana

you are experiencing a different type

of meditation because

with each genre there's different

feelings and different things that arise

while you're in that genre

and you had to teach

yourself how to go from one genre to the

too many times people over depend

on quote a teacher

too many times teachers

are people that have experienced jhana

in one stage or another and think they

really know what the meditation is about

without study

and that's the problem

to know what the buddha is teaching

and to truly understand it

first you do the meditation that's why i

tell people when they first

come i don't want you to read anything

while you're on retreat

when you get home after you have some

direct

experience and

probably 85 or 90 percent of the people

that practice

the 10-day retreat with me

they will have experience of at least

the fourth

genre and many many more

go much deeper than that

the fourth ghana is a very strong

equanimity balance of mind

and your understanding is such that you

can pick up

the matchman nikaya you read what the

majama nikaya

says and you'll understand what it says

because you have the knowledge and

vision of

the direct experience

so it's quite interesting that

in only 10 days because you are teaching

yourself and you have progress

you truly understand what the buddha was

talking about

now there's people that they would they

don't want to do

meditation but what they want to do is

just study they're they're the more

scholarly type

person

but this kind of

knowledge and vision that they gain just

from

the practice of study

the information that they have

is too slow when you get to certain

places in the meditation

you don't have

let's say you get to the fourth drama

you don't personally understand what

equanimity

is but intellectually you do

and eventually you'll figure out well

this must be

the fourth jhana

but when you're practicing the

meditation

and a lot of people that come to me

on the third or fourth day of the

retreat

do experience the fourth channel

and this is a major step

in the meditation and this is where

i get you off of loving kindness

meditating

meditation and start teaching the brahma

viharas to you

and your progress in the meditation

because your understanding of how this

process

works happens fairly quickly

every retreat that i give

if the people follow directions the way

that i gave them without adding

anything or try to say no

i'm not going to do it this way i want

to do it the way i already know how to

do it

their progress is very slow

but as i said when you follow the

directions that's given

by the third or fourth day of the

retreat you'll be able to experience

going into the fourth channel where your

mind has

real balance in it your mind doesn't get

excited doesn't get so emotional with

things

and your mind becomes much more clear

and this is why the buddha praised

getting into this

ghana

it's really quite entertainment

now when i was practicing straight

vipassana

of course we were told don't ever

do anything with jhana that's only for

developing your psychic abilities

and the fourth drama doesn't have

anything to do with the psychic

abilities they

depends on the person's personality

type whether they're going to experience

some

psychic abilities or not

but getting into the for into the fourth

genre is really a major

good thing and this is where your true

knowledge and vision

occur

on account he uh he is pleased with

that knowledge and vision and his

intention

is fulfilled on

on account of it he lauds himself and

disparages others

i live knowing and seeing

but others other monks

live unknowing and unseeing

he becomes intoxicated with that

knowledge and vision

grows negligent falls into negligent

in being negligent he still

lives in suffering

i wrote a book called life is meditation

meditation is life trying to get across

the idea that meditation is living

not just sitting and quieting mind

mindfulness is remembering to observe

how mind's attention

moves and it can

it's moving all the time and when you

use the 6rs your mind becomes clear and

you're able to see more clearly

how mind's attention moves

and how to let go of craving

so all of these things are kind of

interconnected

and it's important to understand that

knowledge and vision

is gained through doing the meditation

without

breaking a precept

suppose a man needing heartwood seeking

heartwood

wandering in search of heartwood came to

great great tree standing possessed of

heartwood

passing over its heartwood he would cut

off the sapwood

and take it away thinking it was

heartwood

then a man with good sight seeing him

might say

this good man did not know the heartwood

and still is live

in kneading heartwood

he cut off at sapwood and took it away

thinking it was heartwood

whatever it was this good man had to

make with heartwood

his purpose will not be full served

so here monks

some klansmen go forth out of faith from

the home life

into homelessness considering i'm a

victim of birth aging

and death of sorrow lamentation pain

grief and despair

i am a victim of suffering pray to

suffering

it's surely an ending of the whole mass

of suffering can be known

when he has gone forth thus he acquires

gain honor and renown he's not pleased

with the gain honor and renown

and his intention is not fulfilled

when he is diligent he achieves the

attainment of virtue he is pleased with

the attainment of virtue but his

intention is not fulfilled

when he is diligent and he achieves

achieves the attainment of collectedness

he is pleased with the attainment of

collectedness

but his intention is not fulfilled

when he is diligent and he achieves

knowledge and vision he's pleased with

that knowledge and vision

but his intention is not fulfilled

he does not on account of it lod himself

and disparage others

he does not become intoxicated with the

knowledge and vision

he does not grow negligent and fall into

negligence

being diligent he attains perpetual

liberation and it is impossible for that

monk to fall away

from the perpetual deliverance now this

is talking about getting

into the noble

sangha the noble sangha is anyone that's

become a sotapanna

a saket agami an onagami

or an arahat

these are called super mundane states

they're not states that ordinary people

experience

suppose a man needing heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood came to a great tree standing

possessed of heartwood

cutting off only its heartwood

he would take it away knowing it was

heartwood

then a man with good eyesight seeing him

might say

this good man knew the heartwood the

sapwood

the inner bark the outer bark and the

leaves and twigs

thus while meeting heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood

he came to a great tree standing

possessed of heartwood

and cutting off only his heartwood

he took it away knowing it was heartwood

whatever this good man had to make with

heartwood

his purpose has is well preserved

so to hear some clansmen

go forth out of faith

then he is diligent and attains

perpetual liberation

and it is impossible for that monk to

fall away

from perpetual deliverance

now when you become the sodapana that's

the lowest stage

that means that you're never going to

have any doubt

as to whether this practice works

properly or not

no doubt you know

that rights and rituals will not lead to

nibana

doesn't mean you can't do the rights and

rituals but you know that it's not going

to lead to nibana

also

you're going to see the impersonal

nature

of everything more and more clearly

and you're going to understand it more

and more deeply

and you're going to start to understand

the lengths of dependent origination and

how they actually

work dependent origination

is the backbone of the teaching

and it's extremely important

so this holy life monks does not have

gain honor and renown for its benefit

or the attainment of virtue for its

benefit

or the attainment of collectedness for

its benefit

or knowledge and vision for its benefit

but it is this unshakable deliverance of

mine

that is the goal of the holy life

it's heartwood and its end

that's what the blessed one said the

monks were satisfied and delighted in

the blessed one's words

so this gives you a good progression of

what you can expect

for yourself when you practice

the meditation

so do you have

any questions

it's on yes i'm sure

okay yes

elizabeth oh very good how are you

i'm very well thank you i had a question

it seemed that in the suta

um these were very sincere people these

were

and and the impression that i got in the

suta was how

easy it is to be deceived how easy

it is to become intoxicated with

something that you think

is the goal to lose sight of it

it was it was striking every time it was

wow it is a minefield

yes it is and

one of the things one of the reasons

that when you come and practice with me

i don't tell you what genre you're in

until after you get past the fourth

genre

is because you don't have that pride you

don't have that

interference of puffing up your chest

and say

well i'm at the second drana

or i'm at the third john i don't tell

you what genre you're in for that

very reason when i was practicing

straight pipasana there were still

people that were practicing

jhana practice and oh you were some kind

of special person if you got into a

jhana

and they they would always walk around

with their chest puffed up

so i didn't like that so i wouldn't tell

people what channel they were in

and it doesn't really matter it matters

to me

what genre you're in so i know how to

tell you things

but if you have a decent teacher

he's not going to allow that to occur in

you

okay

thank you bonte

anybody else

yes this is christoph i'm sophia's

husband

yeah and um i have a quick question

about

uh craving you mentioned that

craving is the i like it i don't like it

mind

does that mean that because we'd like

something or don't like something

that it's not quite like that oh okay

when i say it's i like it i don't like

it mind i'm talking about feeling

whatever feeling arises if it's a

painful feeling

i don't like it and i want it to stop

if it's a pleasant feeling i like it and

i want it to continue

right now there is

something that's called chanda

chanda means wholesome

desire now if you want to attain nibana

that's called chanda you point your mind

in that direction and you don't get

caught up in the i want

anymore you're just pointing your mind

in the direction you want to go i want

to attain nibana someday

that is chanda

so and that's something that gets

confused quite a bit

okay uh it seems that an awful lot of

people

try to be over

particular with

desire okay they don't understand

desire so much

i can make a determination which is

chanda which is a wholesome desire

to go into

this genre for a period of time

that's a wholesome desire and that's not

something that you're attached to

it doesn't have craving in it it's just

learning how to point your mind in that

direction

when you get to the place where you're

practicing the six

directions now that means the desire

to put your point all beings

in front of you and then all beings

behind you

and all beings to the right to the left

above and below

and then you put that chanda to work

in all directions at the same time

now that's desire but that's wholesome

desire

do you understand so yeah

and just do i understand correctly if

it's kind of the difference

is one is chanda and the other one is

the control

freak right okay the wanting to control

okay that's that's the

the evil one of meditators

thank you and it's easy to fall into

especially when you have a real

pain in your backside or your arm or

your leg and you just can't stand it

it's a real easy one to fall into

and move and try to get rid of that pain

i i was just told

this week somebody from india called and

told me

that one of their students

just found out they're in

uh the four the fourth stage of cancer

and they were going to be dying very

soon

and they asked what can you what can i

help them with so that they can

die peacefully and there is two things

that i told them they had to do

one is start working on forgiveness

forgive

yourself for causing someone else pain

forgive that that person for causing

pain to you

and if you can do it in person that's

best

or you can do it when you're sitting in

meditation

the other thing that is extremely

important especially with people that

have

cancer they have high

acidity in their body in the blood

and what they need to do is

take bicarbonate of soda that's

uh baking soda

a spoonful in a glass of water in the

morning a spoonful and a glass of water

in the evening

it doesn't have to be a full glass it

can be a half half full

and this is an alkaline

and it it takes away the food for the

cancer

so that gives it a chance to

overcome that problem now i was just

reading about it on the internet

and they said that this is one of the

reasons that

very few people died of cancer before

the 1700s

was the reason was that that they were

giving them baking soda and then

overcomes that so it's quite interesting

i had another student that quite some

years ago

she was on her deathbed the doctor said

within six weeks to two months she was

going to be dead with cancer

and somebody took me to see her and i

did some chanting and that sort of thing

for her

and she asked if there's anything that

she could do

and i said well you need to forgive

all the pains that you've gone through

the pain of the

physical pain forgive the pain for being

there

forgive other people for causing you

pain forgive yourself for causing other

people

pain and

last year now this was

i think it was 2010 when i when i

saw her i just saw her one time i didn't

know what was happening

after that

last year she came and she donated this

road to me

she was still alive

so the forgiveness and the baking soda

is a very good combination there's no

guarantees that it's going to work

but it certainly can help it can help

have your mind be more at ease and

accepting

thank you thank you you're very welcome

anybody else's question

hello bonte yes

so i have this question relating to that

so how do you know if you've fallen half

asleep

or if you've entered one of the formless

dramas well you're aware

are you aware while you're half asleep

it's one of the signs of getting into

neither perception or non-perception

but you will get into a place where

there is

nothing absolutely nothing there's no

movement of mind's attention

now you're taking mind as your object of

meditation

and if you see your mind starting to

come up with a thought

then use you relax and come back to that

quiet

mind

okay make sense

oh good yeah

so it's like uh if you see that

you have a thought forming or if you

some sense like some movement within

your mind

right then you relax

and that's in essence what you're doing

is the six

hours and it can happen automatically

sometimes you relax

and stay with the quiet mind

sharpen your mindfulness you should be

sitting longer right now

if you have the time three hours

is a good amount of time to sit

oh cool

[Laughter]

and of course if you want to sit four

that's up to you

right but any less than three

it takes a long time for the

uh purification of mind but when you get

up to three hours continually

without moving

that is very very useful

right

thank you monty okay and again i want to

remind everyone

if you're running across a place that

you don't understand

and you feel like you need to take a

retreat but you don't want to quit your

job

right now to do that you don't have the

vacation time

you can sign up for an online

retreat now the online retreat

is you get up in the morning

you say the precepts do a little

ceremony

then you sit for an hour

during the day when you're back at your

job

you relax and smile

a lot

at lunchtime if you have some time

then if you want to do walking

meditation stay with your object of

meditation while you're walking

when you get home there is a

questionnaire that david has developed

where you tell us exactly what's

happening with your meditation

we will answer it

and then we suggest that you listen to

one of the domino talks that we have

selected

and if you have time before you go to

bed and you're not too sleepy

sit for another hour

but smiling during the day is very

important with your daily activities

because that helps sharpen your

mindfulness

so that when you do the sitting your

mind is

a lot more alert and

as i said we will give you all the

answers we

we can to help you after we find out

what your practice is it's very

important that you fill out

the questionnaire okay

and we're starting to have more and more

people

doing online retreat especially with

this virus that's around

[Music]

if you feel like you want to just take

the diamond do that

instead of sitting home and twiddling

your thumbs you can do an online retreat

that would be very good

okay and say hello

yes i have a question yes

related to these strange times

um my mum is 98 years old

and in a care home about 15 miles

15 minutes drive from here but i've not

been able to see her since february

and um phone calls with

uh become ever more difficult

as she her mind unravels

uh i'm getting quite upset you know

yeah um

i'm wondering what i can do for well

yeah there's something i want everybody

to understand

and that is you are never

hopeless if you want to help

spend time having her in your mind

and radiating loving kindness to her

her mind will settle down she won't be

so excited

and it can help with memory sometimes

my mother was 93 when she died

the last six weeks of her her being

alive

i spent with her every day sending

loving and kind

thoughts to her on the day that she did

die there was a lot of family that was

we knew that it was getting close and a

lot of family came and they were just

sitting

around in the room waiting for my mother

to die

and i started radiating equanimity

so everybody had a balanced mind

now these were all

my family is very strongly christian

and that's fine i don't care what

religion they are they all

felt the equanimity and they knew that i

was

i was sending it to them

after she died there's about 10 minutes

that everybody was quiet

and then one of the relatives said i

don't know whether to

smile and be glad or cry

and i said well now that she's gone

you don't have to worry about it

whatever expression the grief comes out

for you

accept the grief without pushing it away

so instead of thinking uh and having

a aversion thoughts to what's happening

right now

send loving and kind thoughts not only

to yourself

but to other members of the family

everybody is feeling the same way you

are

so you send them loving and kind

thoughts and their mind will start to be

more balanced and accepting

thinking about your mother and her

situation with aversion

doesn't help anybody

so you radiate loving kindness to her

and i'll suggest this too

take uh like a quart jar

of clean water

and hold it while you're sending loving

and kind thoughts to your

to your mother and your family members

and if you feel anything coming on a

cold

or you start feeling not as healthy as

you could

start drinking that water water

holds energy they've

they've proved that a long time ago in

in japan

and you're putting loving kindness back

into your body

and that makes everything more healthy

and i'll explain this too uh when i was

malaysia there was a woman that was

pregnant

that she wanted me to uh

give her a blessing and i i

[Music]

took a bottle of water and i held it

while i was doing the chanting and then

i was

radiating loving kindness for about a

half an hour

and i gave her that water and i told her

anytime that

the baby in in her body

became over anxious

and and moving around a lot take some of

that water and just massage the baby

and the baby would calm down very

quickly after that

and when she finally had the baby

it came with very i know there's a lot

of pain in childbirth

but it wasn't as long as it had been

with

other children that she'd had it was

fairly fast there was only a few hours

that she was in

labor and when the baby came out the

baby came out smiling

and it did really odd things now i know

a lot of babies

when they when they're born the first

six months or eight months they're

crying all the time

but she did weird things

this little girl

would sleep all night without crying

and that was very amazing

and the first time i went to go see her

she saw me and she put her hands

together like this

after that it got real popular and a lot

of pregnant women were coming

and practicing with me and i gave them

water

[Music]

so i there was 27 or 30

different families

that i called them my kids

they're they're grown now so that's

they're they were my kids because i gave

them the water and that helped them to

have

a happier life more accepting

so do that and send some water to her

okay thank you and tell her take a sip

every day

now as she starts to run out wait till

she gets about a quarter full of

say a quart jar pint jar whatever

and put more distilled water in it

and shake it 15 times and that will

re-energize

all of that water so it doesn't run out

okay

[Music]

and that that will help her mind be more

peaceful and calm

and it will help your mind be more

peaceful

that'll be good okay thank you banker

you're welcome anything else

hi bunty hey how are you doing

i'm doing well thank you good how are

you

real good it's good to see you

yeah um so i have a actually a related

question to steve's question

okay i've noticed you know popping up in

in the sutures occasionally

the uh uh parents are sort of

placed in a special high regard um

in the in the buddhist tradition right

and like i've i've read the the tagalog

a couple times and it talks about it

there um

yeah i was wondering if because you know

this has come up

in my life especially because now i'm um

since the pandemic started i've been

staying with my parents

um and so i was wondering if you could

talk a little bit about

sort of uh what um

what the responsibilities are to parents

like from the buddhist perspective or

from your perspective

well from my perspective the more love

you can give them the better

okay so every day put

put aside 10 or 15 minutes and just

radiate loving kindness to them wherever

they happen

to be

and there are times when parents have to

tough and you don't really understand it

yourself and you

start holding a grudge towards them

forgive yourself for not understanding

forgive them

for not understanding

[Music]

and there was

a russian man that his dialect of

russian

they didn't have the word forgiveness in

so we came up with acceptance

okay everybody has a bad day every now

and then then they're

gruff and they they've just gone through

you don't understand what their problem

was

so you have a tendency to take it

personally

and and get mad at them and that sort of

thing so forgive yourself for that

and forgive them

also laugh

with them

get them to laugh okay

it's real important

have fun with your parents even though

your parents can be

strong with discipline and disappointed

that you didn't follow their advice and

all of that

you forgive them for that

but don't take it personally don't take

as they hate me

they don't they truly love you they

don't know how to express it sometimes

so you forgive them for not knowing it's

okay

one of the major mistakes that almost

everybody has

is they when they're around adults they

think and they'll

adults know everything and

geez they're just like you so you don't

know everything so

why do you think they should know

everything

well you can follow their advice if it

seems good to follow

but don't argue with them about it

okay send them loving kindness and send

them forgiveness

that will make life much more easy for

you

okay okay well okay thank you so much

you're welcome thank you

anybody else have a question

okay let's share some errors oh yes okay

okay i wanted to wait to see if there's

no other questions and jump in

because we've already asked one um

this is connected to the advice you gave

steve about the holy water the

loving kindness water right

seems

licking his fur out of his skin to the

extent that the skin is bare

and i was wondering if this we could use

this for

helping our cat too because you know

of course the doctor would give him

medicine but we can see that it's

some sort of a mental i would take a

little bit of water and put in his

drinking water

and every day give him a massage

him or her i don't know which kind of

him

okay

male cats especially love to get robbed

yes so just take some and while you're

doing that while you're touching him

give him loving kindness

yes okay

okay thank you you bet

every being wants the same thing

all beings want to be loved

so our job is to oblige them and give it

to them

okay thank you thank you

okay anybody else ante it's elizabeth i

was just gonna say

that i have a i have a two-year-old

dog and um he sits with me

in my meditation room and he has a

special

chair i'm not exaggerating and

he um all i have to do is

you know put my finger to my mouth like

and i swear he loves to be

in the room when i'm meditating

absolutely

goes into the deepest sleep

i'll be meditating and i'll hear

and i'm like and he's already been up

he's like should be active

it's just i'm and i'm not trying to be

trite

he's very drawn and attracted to

me when i'm sitting in meditation

yeah i'll tell you another dog story

i had a dog he just

appeared one day and he was

part pit bull and part um

[Music]

labrador

smiley yeah

he demanded to be in the room

whenever i gave a diamond talk and if we

i mean he didn't show up and we closed

the doors

he was sit outside the door and start

howling until

he couldn't hear me talk so we had to

let him in

and he was very insistent about that he

and he was right at my feet

and he would listen

and he really liked it

and he was our protector dog

now we're in the forest and we have some

cabins

up in the forest and sometimes

we have women that would come and we put

them in one of those cabins

he would stay with them the whole time

they he would get uh he would see that

after the domino talk

the woman would come out and go to her

cabin so he would stay right outside the

door

if she got up during the night had to go

to the bathroom he would be with her the

whole time

and he would wait at the door until she

got done and then walked back with her

and then at 5 30 she would come down

for the uh morning service

he was right there with her the whole

time

he knew that that it was his job to take

care of

anybody that had any fear he would be

right there and help him

quite an amazing dog and his name was

smiley

smiley yeah i called him smiley because

the first time i met him i

started petting him and he started

smiling

i couldn't think of any other name for

him

that's a beautiful he had he had a great

smile he really did

and very very intelligent

what kind of comment does a dog have

to get to live with

a buddhist monk who is actually living

the buddhist teachings

good karma right there that's good karma

yeah

and they gen the dogs generally even if

they've been mistreated

after a period of time they mellow out

i was just telling you about smiley

he was smart except

uh he liked to chase cars with the

wheels running moving

and he got run over and died

he was reborn in uh

to seat to heaven

is very unusual for an animal to be

reborn into

a heavenly realm very unusual

and some of the people there they

started seeing all of a sudden this

black dog was running around

and he would he would sometimes come

visit me

and we had another black dog and i

thought that black dog was

right beside me and i put my hand down

and i put my hand through him

and then i'd turn and look and look down

and watch him

run through the door so he came and

visited for quite a while

i haven't seen him for a long time now

he might have changed into a human being

which happens

wow thank you for sharing that story

[Music]

yeah we have a lot of animals around

here

um i'm i'm missing

one one that i haven't seen this year

and that that's a groundhog

you sign yes

agree oh good well i have to run outside

they're great fun to be around and they

understand what you talk when you're

talking to them

they won't run away they'll but if you

get too close to them then they'll start

to turn around and go away

but i like watching them run because

they're real

fat in the in the hind end and they kind

of waddle

it's it's real fun to watch them

[Music]

so i'll have to go out and make friends

with the new

new groundhog

so is there any other questions

okay let's hear some merit now

may suffering ones be suffering free and

the fear struck fearless be

may the grieving shed all grief and may

all beings find relief

may all beings share this merit that we

have thus

acquired for the acquisition of all

kinds of happiness

may beings inhabiting space and earth

gave us and not as a mighty power share

this merit of ours may they long protect

the buddhist dispensation

[Music]

so you all have fun and have a good week

thank you so much bronte okay thank you

bandy

oh you're welcome thank you see you

wednesday

oh yeah that's yeah okay

bye everybody david's my calendar he

keeps up with these things

you

[Music]

i hope everybody's had a good week

this particular suta is one that i like

very much

because it it spells out

the different stages that happen

during the time of the buddha

it's a different stages for monks and

what they

are striving to attain so

that's what i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living at roger gaha

on the mountain vulture peak

it was soon after devadatta had left

they're referring to david gotta the

blessed one

addressed amongst us

monks here some clansmen go forth out of

faith

from the home life into homelessness

considering

i'm a victim of birth aging and death of

sorrow

lamentation pain grief and despair

i'm a victim of suffering a prey to

suffering

surely an ending of this whole mass of

suffering can be known

when he has gone forth thus he acquires

gain

honor and renown

he's pleased with gain honor and

renowned as

in and his intention is fulfilled

that's what happened to dave adata

and there are some monks

that that's all they're interested in

is becoming popular

to me that's a very low course of action

and it feeds the ego so you don't get

as good a teaching from somebody that's

just looking for gain

and honor and renown

on account of which he lodges himself

and disparages other

i have gained honor and renown

but these other monks are unknown of no

account

he becomes intoxicated with

gain honor and renown grows negligent

falls into negligence and being

negligent he lives in suffering

suppose a man needing heartwood seeking

heartwood

wandering in search of heartwood came to

a great tree

standing possessed of heartwood

passing over its heartwood its sapwood

its inner bark its outer bark

it would cut off its twigs and leaves

and

take them away thinking they were

heartwood

then a man with good sight seeing

might say this good man

did not know the heartwood the sapwood

the inner bark the outer bark

or the twigs and leaves thus

while kneading heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood he came to a great treat a

standing possessed of heartwood

passing over its heartwood it sapped

with its inner

bark and outer bark he cut off the twigs

and leaves and took them away

thinking they were heartwood

whatever it was this good man had

to make with heartwood his purpose will

not be

served so to

monks some clansmen go forth out of

faith but they still

live in suffering

this monk is called one who has taken

the twigs and leaves of the holy life

and

stopped short of that

here some clansmen go forth out of faith

from the home life into homelessness

considering

i'm a victim of birth aging and death of

sorrow lamentation

pain grief and despair i'm a victim of

suffering afraid to suffering

surely the ending of this whole mass of

suffering can be known

in in my experience of being a monk for

35 years

and uh practicing

meditation a few years before that

i came to the realization and that the

reason that i

started looking for meditation at all

was i was suffering i was suffering a

lot i got heavy into

depression and i was looking for a way

out

and all of all of the people that i've

ever talked to

about buddhism that was their goal

that was the orig the origination of the

start of the practice

now you have to have some curiosity

to start looking

but the pain was in my case the pain was

so great i had to find

some way out of it or i was going to

commit suicide i hadn't come

i hadn't thought about suicide

quite yet but i knew that i was heading

that way

i think all of you have experienced

something like that

at the start of your practice you were

unsatisfied with what

life was presenting itself with and

there was a lot of suffering

and trying to get out of suffering

in in america when i first started that

was

in the mid 70s

that's when there was a lot of uh

whole magic mushrooms and lsd

and a lot of pot and things like that

that people were

taking so that they wouldn't experience

so much suffering

now i have run across some people

that come here and do a retreat

and then when they get off retreat they

immediately

light up a joint

not understanding that they are

hurting themselves more than they're

helping

when you take the precepts

be serious about it take the precepts

with the understanding that you're going

to keep the precepts

without breaking any of them

why because when you keep your precepts

without breaking them

your mind will naturally tend towards

peace and tranquility and when you start

doing the meditation your progress

is very fast

now i've given you some in the past

a few talks i've given you

the reason that this is like that

whenever you break a precept

you're

interfering with a peaceful calm

alert mind

even some something as trivial as a

little white lie

can affect you negatively

and you have to purify yourself from

that

before you're going to progress with

your meditation

now i've been with students it took a

long time for them to understand what

the meditation was about

i've had students for over 30 years that

when they got off retreat they went back

to the way they were

breaking precepts and using foul

language and things like that

breaking the precept of no

alcohol

now there are some medicines that

they have alcohol in them

those are called medicines not

uh drinking alcohol to exist so

it it clouds the way you think

i know that there are doctors that

recommend

as you get older to take a little maybe

a half an ounce or an ounce of wine

before you go to sleep

and you sleep more soundly and that's

considered medicine

but smoking a joint after uh

doing a retreat or any time

you're hurting yourself

please i want to warn you against doing

that

um dave adata was never

he became a monk under the buddha

and he was from a family that had great

merit

he was a buddha's cousin

but he was continually breaking precepts

especially with

[Music]

alcoholic drinks and

they had just as many drugs

during the time of the buddha as we do

now they give them different names now

but they still they

they had roots that they say if you take

this root and you

you hold it in your mouth you're going

to be very happy

and there are things like that but they

they really

cloud your mind so it's best not to do

that sort of thing

okay when a monk has gone forth thus he

acquires

gain honor and renown is not pleased

with gain honor and renown

and his intention is not fulfilled

he does not on account of it laud

himself and disparage others

he does not become intoxicated

with that gain honor and renown

he does not grow negligent and fall

into negligence

being diligent he achieves the

attainment of virtue

keeping the precepts this is

something for monks it's something

that's done very early in their practice

or before they even take on the practice

he's pleased with the attainment of

virtue

and his intention is fulfilled

on account of that he lodges himself and

disparages others

i'm virtuous of good character

but these other monks are immoral of

evil character he becomes intoxicated

with the attainment of virtue

grows negligent falls into negligence

and being negligent he lives

in suffering so even keeping your

precepts

without breaking them you still can have

a lot of suffering

why because you haven't purified your

mind enough

suppose a man knitting heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

hardwood

came to a great tree standing possessed

of heartwood

passing over its heart wood its sapwood

its inner bark he would cut off

the outer bark and take it away

thinking it was heartwood then a man

with good sight

seeing him might say this good man did

not know the heartwood

and only went away taking the

outer bark thus while

kneading heartwood he cut off the outer

bark and took it away

thinking it was heartwood whatever it

was

this good man had to make with heartwood

his purpose will not be served

so too monks here

some clansmen goes forth out of faith

still lives in suffering

this monk is called one who has taken

the outer bark of the holy life and

stopped

short with that

a lot of people

have an idea that all monks are

um they're supposed to be very

virtuous and the key word here is

supposed to be

but they still have a lot of stuff to go

through

they can still have their angers and

their greeds and that sort of thing

as they develop more and more

then they are able to let go

of those sort of things and become more

virtuous

all the time but a lot of laymen they

they put this label he's a monk how can

he do something like that

tell a lie or do something that's not

really appropriate for the monks

so you have to understand

that being a monk the first five years

that you become a monk you're supposed

to stay

with your uppachaya and upachaya

is a spiritual father

and he's going to train you over five

years

so that you can develop that uplifted

mind all the time

and you understand more and more what

the buddhist teaching is all about

and keeping the precepts

they they know very well what all of

that means

but if they don't stay for five years

then there's a wrong idea of

they're taking on the robes and there

can be a lot of mistakes that are made

and they don't know as as mistakes

one of the things that's happening in

the buddhist countries

as foreigners start to go

to these buddhist countries and become

monks

is they just ordain the monks

and let them go off on their own do

anything they want to do

so there's not this deep understanding

what a monk actually is

and how much they need to

spend time not only chanting but

visiting other monks

and talking with them about dhamma

so there's the wedding down

of the dhamma that's happening right now

that's kind of dangerous

now this practice that i've

i've been giving you the six r's

will purify your mind

and it will purify your mind so much

that you can become

a noble one

and the noble sangha

it doesn't matter whether you have robes

or or you are a layman

the way you join the noble sangha

is by experiencing

becoming at least a sodapana

now just because you become a sodapana

doesn't mean

that you automatically you're going to

be keeping the precepts all the time

you can still break a precept

but when you break a precept you feel

very very guilty

and that guilty feeling

is you know that you broke a precept

and you want to purify your mind

because if you break a precept and then

you go sit in meditation you're going to

have a lot of hindrances come up

you need to purify your mind

and there's different ways of doing that

one you go to a monk if there's one

available

and tell him that you broke a precept

and he will give you the precepts again

with a strong determination not to do

that again

[Music]

that's one way of purifying your mind

so you don't have that guilty feeling of

breaking a precept

excuse me

if there is no monk

around that you can confess your your

breaking of a precept

then you go to a spiritual friend

someone who truly

understands the essence of keeping your

your precepts very good while you

are living your life

and you confess it to a friend

one of the reasons that hindrances

arise is because

in the past in our recent past

or it could be past lifetimes we broke

precepts

as soon as you break a precept you have

a guilty mind

i shouldn't have done that

i had a lot of friends that that were in

wars

and they actually killed someone

and they said that that guilty feeling

never goes away

you look at life much differently

after doing a heinous act like killing

someone else

i highly recommend that they

start with forgiveness of themself

and when that person comes up in their

mind

they look them straight in the eye and

ask them

them to forgive him

and he forgives himself for doing that

act

and that's the only way that

you can really purify your mind

now during the time of the buddha

there was a monk

he was called angulimala

and his teacher

had told him that he had to go out and

kill a thousand people and cut off one

of their fingers

to prove that he had done that

now he wound up killing 999

people

[Music]

and he was a scourge

of a a certain area

in india people were afraid to go into

that forest because he was there

and he got a big reputation for killing

people

the angulimala

mala means necklace anguli

is finger so he was

named finger necklace

when it got time to kill

the one thousandth person to fulfill his

teachers

task the teacher was not a very virtuous

person

the angulimala

thought that he might for his thousandth

one

he would go out and kill his mother

the buddha saw that that was his

intention

that he was going to go out and try to

kill his mother

and he got in the way

he appeared right

as angulimala was planning

the the killing of his mother

and the buddha started walking

very slowly away

and angulimala was running after him

with the intention of killing him

but he couldn't catch up to the buddha

who was walking very slowly and he was

running as fast as he could

and he never caught up with the buddha

finally he stopped and he said

monk please

stop

and the buddha kept walking and turned

and said to him

i already have stopped

and angulimala said but you're still

walking

but the buddha said i have stopped

letting craving dictate things that

happened to me

in my life

now i there there's

a big emphasis on craving

and everybody's supposed to know what

craving is

and how to recognize it

and to my shock and dismay when i spent

12 years in asia i couldn't find

one person that came up with

the definition that really made sense

for craving

it talks about craving but it doesn't

tell you what the definition is

and of the four noble truths they talk

about

exactly how to recognize craving

know what it is understand it

how to let it go and

take the path that leads to the

cessation of the suffering

of craving

so anguli stopped on gulimala stopped

walking and so did the buddha

and then they started discussing dhamma

and anguli mala saw the error of his

ways

and he

eventually became a sodapana

just by talking with the buddha and

getting his

his mind more clear

and then he ordained

and became a buddhist monk

now about that time

the king pasanati of kosala

was sending out an army and they were

going to rid

rid the area of angulimala

so he went to the buddha first and

started talking with him

about the problems they were having with

angulimala and how he was killing so

many people

and andrew limala was sitting

in the group of sangha that was

listening to what

king kosala

[Music]

and the buddha said

what would you think if i told you

that angulimala

is sitting in this room

and the hair on the back of king

pasanati

it stood on its end

and then the buddha introduced him

as this is the monk

that was angulimala

and he has given up his

his killing ways

so the king took the bounty off of

angulimala

and allowed him to become be a monk

on golimala that one of the things that

happens when you're a monk

in in asia at that time

all the monks went out on arms around to

collect food for the day

then they would come back and eat it

but angulimala was re was recognized

as a uh a killer

and people were very angry at him and it

says in the text

that strays uh

rocks and stones and sticks would

uh hit him and he'd come back with blood

all over his head

and he kind of asked the buddha if

you could have the other monks go out on

ams round and get food for him and the

buddha said no

you have to face this

eventually angulimala became an arahat

and he's he's one of the uh

the group of 80

uh special arahats

it's real interesting if you if you go

to burma

it's right by mingun temple

there's another temple there that has a

marble statues of all 80

of the maha haras

maha means great or big

and angulimala is there i saw i saw

what the artist thought of him it was

carved out of marble

and he had really an angelic face

it really looked good more

more beautiful than a lot of the other

ones

anyway

so even if

anyone winds up

killing they have a guilty mind

or stealing or wrong sexual activity

or telling lies and gossip

or taking drugs and alcohol

they feel guilty by doing that

and this guilty feeling is the cause

of the wrong belief in a personal self

every time you break a precept it causes

your mind

to store up

that wrong belief i am that

and when you use the 6rs

which is the eight-fold path

you

your mind from that guilty feeling

and you finally let it go and when you

your mind becomes very clear and very

bright and you start seeing things

as they actually occur

now this seeing

anata in everything

the impersonal nature

means that you have a pure mind

at that time

that is how you achieve the cessation

of suffering

because you're not taking anything

personally anymore

you have more balance in your mind you

have more

true understanding of how this process

works

as we go along in the suta you'll see

that there's

different steps that monks go through

and this one monk that they're talking

about

he was very satisfied when he when he

gained virtue and he didn't continue on

and that's like taking the outer bark of

a tree

that has heartwood in it so he's not

gaining as much as he would truly like

to gain

here's some klansman goes forth out of

faith from the home life

into homelessness considering i'm a

victim of age

birth aging and death of sorrow

lamentation

pain grief and despair

i'm a victim of suffering pray to

suffering

surely ending and ending of this whole

mass of suffering can be known

when he's gone forth thus he acquires

gain honor and renown he's not pleased

with gain honor and renown

and his intention is not fulfilled

being diligent he achieves the

attainment

of virtue he's pleased with the

attainment of virtue but his intention

is not fulfilled

he does not on account of it laud

himself

and disparage others he does not become

intoxicated with that attainment of

virtue

he does not grow negligent and fall into

negligence

being negligent he achieves the

attainment of

collectedness he is pleased with the

attainment of collectedness and his

intention is fulfilled

now collectedness is a word that i

substitute for concentration

the word concentration is way too

misunderstood

as a result i don't like to use it

because

then almost everybody that does a kind

of concentration

winds up putting an awful lot of energy

into staying

in that that state

but when they come out

their concentration fades and

they have entrances coming back and they

haven't purified their mind of

hindrances

mind is pure well it's in the

concentration

state but when the concentration

diminishes

then the hindrances come back stronger

than they they would have

if you hadn't meditated at all

so it's real important for you to

realize

that collectedness

there's stillness of mind just like

there is with concentration

although it's not as deep

your mind is very composed your mind is

very alert and you're

able to see how

hindrances arise and how to let them go

by using the six r's

you see this over a period of time and

it's very

important that you understand this

this difference between the kinds of

meditation that there

are

when i was in india this year i was

there for

five months

i happened to

meet an awful lot of people that had

practiced

going to style meditation which was a

one-pointed concentration

and the goeinka style meditation

had a tendency to bring up

painful feelings in mind and body

and galenco was very big on pushing them

pushing the students so they would try

harder

and the more they tried

the worse the pains became

now the thing with pain is that

there's a natural aversion to pain

it doesn't matter whether it's mental or

physical

there is the aversion of that being

there

and the more you keep your attention on

that the bigger and more intense that

pain becomes

so when they came and started practicing

with me

and they started seeing that if you use

the six hours properly

and you don't have to sit on the floor

with it in a painful posture

you can sit in a chair and be

comfortable

their progress in the meditation was

very fast because they had developed

that kind of concentration

but they had to put in

the six r's

and the smile in their meditation

i get criticized a lot by a lot of

different people because

they are starting to go back into the

suttas now and they say well where does

it say that the buddha said you had to

smile

well if you look at a buddha image

you see the artist is trying to show you

that the buddhas experience

a kind of joy it's called all pervading

joy

this kind of joy has a great deal of

equanimity

with it

but your mind is light

anytime you try to push

away a hindrance to stop a hindrance

from coming up

you keep your attention on that

hindrance

and it gets bigger and more intense

i know because i had 20 years of

practice with

doing exactly that

straight vipassana meditation

tells you to note a hindrance

until it goes away now that's not

following

what right effort is in the eightfold

path

so when i would teach

how to use the six r's

the uh people that had been doing

goeinka meditation they would come

shocked at i didn't have any pain

well they were doing two things in india

everybody thinks that the only kind of

meditation you can do is

sitting on the floor

oh we've been sitting on the floor ever

since we were little children

fine but you're always moving around

because pain start to come up and then

you move so you don't feel the pain

so when people start to realize

that you use

right effort or harmonious practice as i

like to call it

that means one you notice that there's

something unwholesome that arose

there is a hindrance it has tension and

tightness in it

it pulls your attention away from your

object of meditation

the second part of right effort

is release

don't keep your attention on the

hindrance

as soon as you recognize that that

hindrance

is there you don't keep your attention

on it

you smile and you come back to your

object the meditation

and that hindrance will go away very

quickly

you relax when that hindrance

arose it arose because craving was in it

i am that i am the sadness i am this

feeling i

am this pain wherever it has to be i am

this

itch and i don't like it and i want it

to change

i i i i taking is false belief in the

personal self

so now

you relax and you let go

of that distraction you don't pay

attention to it at all

that distraction doesn't necessarily go

away by

itself or go away completely

it might still be there depending on the

amount of attachment you have on it

but you go through the six r's you

recognize

you release the distraction you

relax you re-smile

smiling is an important part of the

practice

why the more you smile

with the practice the more you smile

with your daily

activities

the sharper your mindfulness becomes

you're able to see more and more clearly

how these things arise

what happens first what happens after

that what happens after that

and you start to recognize that this is

a part of an

impersonal process you didn't ask that

that pain or sadness or guilt whatever

it happens to be

you didn't ask that to come up it came

up by itself

what you do with what

in the arises it

happened if you

with what happening right which is what

most of the goeinka people

were doing you can look forward to that

pain

coming up over and over and over again

until you learn

that's not the proper way to handle it

the proper way to handle it

is by not keeping your attention

on the hindrance we don't care what the

hindrance is

we don't even care where it came from

doesn't

what you do with what arises in the

present

matters if you fight with the hindrance

if you try to push it away if you try to

stop it from

bothering you

you can look forward to having it come

up over and over and over again

or you can use the six r's

and allow it to be there without keeping

your attention on it and relax

letting go of the craving

the craving is the i like it i don't

like it mind

when there's pain arising there's a i

don't like it mind

and that is craving as soon as you relax

then you smile and that improves your

awareness so you can catch that movement

of mind's attention more easily more

quickly

now one of the things that the

did not like to have happen during his

retreats and they didn't like

anybody smiling in their

retreat i've had some students that

they went to a go inca retreat after

they practiced with me

and they were sitting there smiling and

they got

warned one time you don't smile with

this meditation

and the second time they get told well

you have to leave you're not following

the directions

but the smile keeps your mind light

keeps your mind very alert

the joy that comes up is a gentler

kind of mind that

is quite

remarkable

then you bring that pure mind that

doesn't have any craving in it

and your light mind which has joy in it

back to your object and meditation

and stay with your object of meditation

as long as you can

so it's a real important aspect

that you understand craving

and how to let it go you

understand the importance

of the relaxed step now these

these students that were in india

one of the things that they said

after the first day i didn't experience

any pain

and they were like shocked

and i said well no you don't need pain

pain is not your friend i was told

when i was doing straight vipassana pain

is your friend it's showing you where

you have

an attachment yeah but it didn't tell me

what to do with that attachment once i

saw it

and i went through a lot of very intense

pains

when i ran across this kind of

meditation

i was completely enthusiastic about it

because it didn't have i didn't bring up

any pains

the whole time i was doing the

meditation

i had very severe headaches

when i was doing the walking meditation

oh very big headache

when i was doing the sitting meditation

sometimes it would go away but

quite often i had a headache all the

time

so when i started doing the 6rs

and that tension and tightness that was

in my head

didn't arise because i used the six r's

i became a real fan

i became very enthusiastic so much so

that i was going to sit for about a half

an hour just trying this method out the

6r method

and i wound up sitting for two hours

because it was so comfortable

i didn't have that pain that was

constantly

intense

with not only the physical

process of it but also the mental

process of it so there's a softening of

the mind

okay i'm gonna get back to this then

suppose a man needing heart wait wait a

minute

[Music]

okay

suppose a mandating heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood

came to a great tree standing possessed

of heartwood

passing over the heartwood and the

sapwood

he cut out he would cut

off the inner mark and take it away

thinking it was heartwood

then a man with good eyesight seeing

him might say this good man did not know

the heartwood

he only took away the inner mark

and thinking it was the heartwood

whatever

it was this good man had to make with

heartwood

his purpose will not be served

so two monks here

some clansmen goes forth out of faith

and has a lot of suffering

this monk is called one who has taken

the inner mark

of the body of life of the holy life

and stopped short after that

here some klansman goes forth out of

faith

in uh from the home life into

homelessness considering

i'm a victim of birth aging death

sorrow lamentation pain grief and

despair

i'm a victim of suffering pray to

suffering fury and

ending of this whole mass of suffering

can be known

when he was gone forth thus he acquires

gain

honor and renown he is not pleased with

gain honor and renowned and his

intention is not fulfilled

being diligent he achieves that the

attainment of virtue

is pleased with the attainment of virtue

but his intention is not fulfilled

being diligent he achieves

the attainment of collectiveness he is

pleased with the attainment of

collectedness

but his intention is not fulfilled

he does not on account of that lord

himself

and disparage others he does not become

intoxicated with that attainment of

concentration

he does not grow negligent and fall

into negligence being negligent he

achieves

knowledge and vision now this means

understanding and this also means going

through

the jammins because they're levels of

understanding

jhana does not mean concentration

it does not

each time you go through a jhana

you are experiencing a different type

of meditation because

with each genre there's different

feelings and different things that arise

while you're in that genre

and you had to teach

yourself how to go from one genre to the

too many times people over depend

on quote a teacher

too many times teachers

are people that have experienced jhana

in one stage or another and think they

really know what the meditation is about

without study

and that's the problem

to know what the buddha is teaching

and to truly understand it

first you do the meditation that's why i

tell people when they first

come i don't want you to read anything

while you're on retreat

when you get home after you have some

direct

experience and

probably 85 or 90 percent of the people

that practice

the 10-day retreat with me

they will have experience of at least

the fourth

genre and many many more

go much deeper than that

the fourth ghana is a very strong

equanimity balance of mind

and your understanding is such that you

can pick up

the matchman nikaya you read what the

majama nikaya

says and you'll understand what it says

because you have the knowledge and

vision of

the direct experience

so it's quite interesting that

in only 10 days because you are teaching

yourself and you have progress

you truly understand what the buddha was

talking about

now there's people that they would they

don't want to do

meditation but what they want to do is

just study they're they're the more

scholarly type

person

but this kind of

knowledge and vision that they gain just

from

the practice of study

the information that they have

is too slow when you get to certain

places in the meditation

you don't have

let's say you get to the fourth drama

you don't personally understand what

equanimity

is but intellectually you do

and eventually you'll figure out well

this must be

the fourth jhana

but when you're practicing the

meditation

and a lot of people that come to me

on the third or fourth day of the

retreat

do experience the fourth channel

and this is a major step

in the meditation and this is where

i get you off of loving kindness

meditating

meditation and start teaching the brahma

viharas to you

and your progress in the meditation

because your understanding of how this

process

works happens fairly quickly

every retreat that i give

if the people follow directions the way

that i gave them without adding

anything or try to say no

i'm not going to do it this way i want

to do it the way i already know how to

do it

their progress is very slow

but as i said when you follow the

directions that's given

by the third or fourth day of the

retreat you'll be able to experience

going into the fourth channel where your

mind has

real balance in it your mind doesn't get

excited doesn't get so emotional with

things

and your mind becomes much more clear

and this is why the buddha praised

getting into this

ghana

it's really quite entertainment

now when i was practicing straight

vipassana

of course we were told don't ever

do anything with jhana that's only for

developing your psychic abilities

and the fourth drama doesn't have

anything to do with the psychic

abilities they

depends on the person's personality

type whether they're going to experience

some

psychic abilities or not

but getting into the for into the fourth

genre is really a major

good thing and this is where your true

knowledge and vision

occur

on account he uh he is pleased with

that knowledge and vision and his

intention

is fulfilled on

on account of it he lauds himself and

disparages others

i live knowing and seeing

but others other monks

live unknowing and unseeing

he becomes intoxicated with that

knowledge and vision

grows negligent falls into negligent

in being negligent he still

lives in suffering

i wrote a book called life is meditation

meditation is life trying to get across

the idea that meditation is living

not just sitting and quieting mind

mindfulness is remembering to observe

how mind's attention

moves and it can

it's moving all the time and when you

use the 6rs your mind becomes clear and

you're able to see more clearly

how mind's attention moves

and how to let go of craving

so all of these things are kind of

interconnected

and it's important to understand that

knowledge and vision

is gained through doing the meditation

without

breaking a precept

suppose a man needing heartwood seeking

heartwood

wandering in search of heartwood came to

great great tree standing possessed of

heartwood

passing over its heartwood he would cut

off the sapwood

and take it away thinking it was

heartwood

then a man with good sight seeing him

might say

this good man did not know the heartwood

and still is live

in kneading heartwood

he cut off at sapwood and took it away

thinking it was heartwood

whatever it was this good man had to

make with heartwood

his purpose will not be full served

so here monks

some klansmen go forth out of faith from

the home life

into homelessness considering i'm a

victim of birth aging

and death of sorrow lamentation pain

grief and despair

i am a victim of suffering pray to

suffering

it's surely an ending of the whole mass

of suffering can be known

when he has gone forth thus he acquires

gain honor and renown he's not pleased

with the gain honor and renown

and his intention is not fulfilled

when he is diligent he achieves the

attainment of virtue he is pleased with

the attainment of virtue but his

intention is not fulfilled

when he is diligent and he achieves

achieves the attainment of collectedness

he is pleased with the attainment of

collectedness

but his intention is not fulfilled

when he is diligent and he achieves

knowledge and vision he's pleased with

that knowledge and vision

but his intention is not fulfilled

he does not on account of it lod himself

and disparage others

he does not become intoxicated with the

knowledge and vision

he does not grow negligent and fall into

negligence

being diligent he attains perpetual

liberation and it is impossible for that

monk to fall away

from the perpetual deliverance now this

is talking about getting

into the noble

sangha the noble sangha is anyone that's

become a sotapanna

a saket agami an onagami

or an arahat

these are called super mundane states

they're not states that ordinary people

experience

suppose a man needing heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood came to a great tree standing

possessed of heartwood

cutting off only its heartwood

he would take it away knowing it was

heartwood

then a man with good eyesight seeing him

might say

this good man knew the heartwood the

sapwood

the inner bark the outer bark and the

leaves and twigs

thus while meeting heartwood seeking

heartwood wandering in search of

heartwood

he came to a great tree standing

possessed of heartwood

and cutting off only his heartwood

he took it away knowing it was heartwood

whatever this good man had to make with

heartwood

his purpose has is well preserved

so to hear some clansmen

go forth out of faith

then he is diligent and attains

perpetual liberation

and it is impossible for that monk to

fall away

from perpetual deliverance

now when you become the sodapana that's

the lowest stage

that means that you're never going to

have any doubt

as to whether this practice works

properly or not

no doubt you know

that rights and rituals will not lead to

nibana

doesn't mean you can't do the rights and

rituals but you know that it's not going

to lead to nibana

also

you're going to see the impersonal

nature

of everything more and more clearly

and you're going to understand it more

and more deeply

and you're going to start to understand

the lengths of dependent origination and

how they actually

work dependent origination

is the backbone of the teaching

and it's extremely important

so this holy life monks does not have

gain honor and renown for its benefit

or the attainment of virtue for its

benefit

or the attainment of collectedness for

its benefit

or knowledge and vision for its benefit

but it is this unshakable deliverance of

mine

that is the goal of the holy life

it's heartwood and its end

that's what the blessed one said the

monks were satisfied and delighted in

the blessed one's words

so this gives you a good progression of

what you can expect

for yourself when you practice

the meditation

so do you have

any questions

it's on yes i'm sure

okay yes

elizabeth oh very good how are you

i'm very well thank you i had a question

it seemed that in the suta

um these were very sincere people these

were

and and the impression that i got in the

suta was how

easy it is to be deceived how easy

it is to become intoxicated with

something that you think

is the goal to lose sight of it

it was it was striking every time it was

wow it is a minefield

yes it is and

one of the things one of the reasons

that when you come and practice with me

i don't tell you what genre you're in

until after you get past the fourth

genre

is because you don't have that pride you

don't have that

interference of puffing up your chest

and say

well i'm at the second drana

or i'm at the third john i don't tell

you what genre you're in for that

very reason when i was practicing

straight pipasana there were still

people that were practicing

jhana practice and oh you were some kind

of special person if you got into a

jhana

and they they would always walk around

with their chest puffed up

so i didn't like that so i wouldn't tell

people what channel they were in

and it doesn't really matter it matters

to me

what genre you're in so i know how to

tell you things

but if you have a decent teacher

he's not going to allow that to occur in

you

okay

thank you bonte

anybody else

yes this is christoph i'm sophia's

husband

yeah and um i have a quick question

about

uh craving you mentioned that

craving is the i like it i don't like it

mind

does that mean that because we'd like

something or don't like something

that it's not quite like that oh okay

when i say it's i like it i don't like

it mind i'm talking about feeling

whatever feeling arises if it's a

painful feeling

i don't like it and i want it to stop

if it's a pleasant feeling i like it and

i want it to continue

right now there is

something that's called chanda

chanda means wholesome

desire now if you want to attain nibana

that's called chanda you point your mind

in that direction and you don't get

caught up in the i want

anymore you're just pointing your mind

in the direction you want to go i want

to attain nibana someday

that is chanda

so and that's something that gets

confused quite a bit

okay uh it seems that an awful lot of

people

try to be over

particular with

desire okay they don't understand

desire so much

i can make a determination which is

chanda which is a wholesome desire

to go into

this genre for a period of time

that's a wholesome desire and that's not

something that you're attached to

it doesn't have craving in it it's just

learning how to point your mind in that

direction

when you get to the place where you're

practicing the six

directions now that means the desire

to put your point all beings

in front of you and then all beings

behind you

and all beings to the right to the left

above and below

and then you put that chanda to work

in all directions at the same time

now that's desire but that's wholesome

desire

do you understand so yeah

and just do i understand correctly if

it's kind of the difference

is one is chanda and the other one is

the control

freak right okay the wanting to control

okay that's that's the

the evil one of meditators

thank you and it's easy to fall into

especially when you have a real

pain in your backside or your arm or

your leg and you just can't stand it

it's a real easy one to fall into

and move and try to get rid of that pain

i i was just told

this week somebody from india called and

told me

that one of their students

just found out they're in

uh the four the fourth stage of cancer

and they were going to be dying very

soon

and they asked what can you what can i

help them with so that they can

die peacefully and there is two things

that i told them they had to do

one is start working on forgiveness

forgive

yourself for causing someone else pain

forgive that that person for causing

pain to you

and if you can do it in person that's

best

or you can do it when you're sitting in

meditation

the other thing that is extremely

important especially with people that

have

cancer they have high

acidity in their body in the blood

and what they need to do is

take bicarbonate of soda that's

uh baking soda

a spoonful in a glass of water in the

morning a spoonful and a glass of water

in the evening

it doesn't have to be a full glass it

can be a half half full

and this is an alkaline

and it it takes away the food for the

cancer

so that gives it a chance to

overcome that problem now i was just

reading about it on the internet

and they said that this is one of the

reasons that

very few people died of cancer before

the 1700s

was the reason was that that they were

giving them baking soda and then

overcomes that so it's quite interesting

i had another student that quite some

years ago

she was on her deathbed the doctor said

within six weeks to two months she was

going to be dead with cancer

and somebody took me to see her and i

did some chanting and that sort of thing

for her

and she asked if there's anything that

she could do

and i said well you need to forgive

all the pains that you've gone through

the pain of the

physical pain forgive the pain for being

there

forgive other people for causing you

pain forgive yourself for causing other

people

pain and

last year now this was

i think it was 2010 when i when i

saw her i just saw her one time i didn't

know what was happening

after that

last year she came and she donated this

road to me

she was still alive

so the forgiveness and the baking soda

is a very good combination there's no

guarantees that it's going to work

but it certainly can help it can help

have your mind be more at ease and

accepting

thank you thank you you're very welcome

anybody else's question

hello bonte yes

so i have this question relating to that

so how do you know if you've fallen half

asleep

or if you've entered one of the formless

dramas well you're aware

are you aware while you're half asleep

it's one of the signs of getting into

neither perception or non-perception

but you will get into a place where

there is

nothing absolutely nothing there's no

movement of mind's attention

now you're taking mind as your object of

meditation

and if you see your mind starting to

come up with a thought

then use you relax and come back to that

quiet

mind

okay make sense

oh good yeah

so it's like uh if you see that

you have a thought forming or if you

some sense like some movement within

your mind

right then you relax

and that's in essence what you're doing

is the six

hours and it can happen automatically

sometimes you relax

and stay with the quiet mind

sharpen your mindfulness you should be

sitting longer right now

if you have the time three hours

is a good amount of time to sit

oh cool

[Laughter]

and of course if you want to sit four

that's up to you

right but any less than three

it takes a long time for the

uh purification of mind but when you get

up to three hours continually

without moving

that is very very useful

right

thank you monty okay and again i want to

remind everyone

if you're running across a place that

you don't understand

and you feel like you need to take a

retreat but you don't want to quit your

job

right now to do that you don't have the

vacation time

you can sign up for an online

retreat now the online retreat

is you get up in the morning

you say the precepts do a little

ceremony

then you sit for an hour

during the day when you're back at your

job

you relax and smile

a lot

at lunchtime if you have some time

then if you want to do walking

meditation stay with your object of

meditation while you're walking

when you get home there is a

questionnaire that david has developed

where you tell us exactly what's

happening with your meditation

we will answer it

and then we suggest that you listen to

one of the domino talks that we have

selected

and if you have time before you go to

bed and you're not too sleepy

sit for another hour

but smiling during the day is very

important with your daily activities

because that helps sharpen your

mindfulness

so that when you do the sitting your

mind is

a lot more alert and

as i said we will give you all the

answers we

we can to help you after we find out

what your practice is it's very

important that you fill out

the questionnaire okay

and we're starting to have more and more

people

doing online retreat especially with

this virus that's around

[Music]

if you feel like you want to just take

the diamond do that

instead of sitting home and twiddling

your thumbs you can do an online retreat

that would be very good

okay and say hello

yes i have a question yes

related to these strange times

um my mum is 98 years old

and in a care home about 15 miles

15 minutes drive from here but i've not

been able to see her since february

and um phone calls with

uh become ever more difficult

as she her mind unravels

uh i'm getting quite upset you know

yeah um

i'm wondering what i can do for well

yeah there's something i want everybody

to understand

and that is you are never

hopeless if you want to help

spend time having her in your mind

and radiating loving kindness to her

her mind will settle down she won't be

so excited

and it can help with memory sometimes

my mother was 93 when she died

the last six weeks of her her being

alive

i spent with her every day sending

loving and kind

thoughts to her on the day that she did

die there was a lot of family that was

we knew that it was getting close and a

lot of family came and they were just

sitting

around in the room waiting for my mother

to die

and i started radiating equanimity

so everybody had a balanced mind

now these were all

my family is very strongly christian

and that's fine i don't care what

religion they are they all

felt the equanimity and they knew that i

was

i was sending it to them

after she died there's about 10 minutes

that everybody was quiet

and then one of the relatives said i

don't know whether to

smile and be glad or cry

and i said well now that she's gone

you don't have to worry about it

whatever expression the grief comes out

for you

accept the grief without pushing it away

so instead of thinking uh and having

a aversion thoughts to what's happening

right now

send loving and kind thoughts not only

to yourself

but to other members of the family

everybody is feeling the same way you

are

so you send them loving and kind

thoughts and their mind will start to be

more balanced and accepting

thinking about your mother and her

situation with aversion

doesn't help anybody

so you radiate loving kindness to her

and i'll suggest this too

take uh like a quart jar

of clean water

and hold it while you're sending loving

and kind thoughts to your

to your mother and your family members

and if you feel anything coming on a

cold

or you start feeling not as healthy as

you could

start drinking that water water

holds energy they've

they've proved that a long time ago in

in japan

and you're putting loving kindness back

into your body

and that makes everything more healthy

and i'll explain this too uh when i was

malaysia there was a woman that was

pregnant

that she wanted me to uh

give her a blessing and i i

[Music]

took a bottle of water and i held it

while i was doing the chanting and then

i was

radiating loving kindness for about a

half an hour

and i gave her that water and i told her

anytime that

the baby in in her body

became over anxious

and and moving around a lot take some of

that water and just massage the baby

and the baby would calm down very

quickly after that

and when she finally had the baby

it came with very i know there's a lot

of pain in childbirth

but it wasn't as long as it had been

with

other children that she'd had it was

fairly fast there was only a few hours

that she was in

labor and when the baby came out the

baby came out smiling

and it did really odd things now i know

a lot of babies

when they when they're born the first

six months or eight months they're

crying all the time

but she did weird things

this little girl

would sleep all night without crying

and that was very amazing

and the first time i went to go see her

she saw me and she put her hands

together like this

after that it got real popular and a lot

of pregnant women were coming

and practicing with me and i gave them

water

[Music]

so i there was 27 or 30

different families

that i called them my kids

they're they're grown now so that's

they're they were my kids because i gave

them the water and that helped them to

have

a happier life more accepting

so do that and send some water to her

okay thank you and tell her take a sip

every day

now as she starts to run out wait till

she gets about a quarter full of

say a quart jar pint jar whatever

and put more distilled water in it

and shake it 15 times and that will

re-energize

all of that water so it doesn't run out

okay

[Music]

and that that will help her mind be more

peaceful and calm

and it will help your mind be more

peaceful

that'll be good okay thank you banker

you're welcome anything else

hi bunty hey how are you doing

i'm doing well thank you good how are

you

real good it's good to see you

yeah um so i have a actually a related

question to steve's question

okay i've noticed you know popping up in

in the sutures occasionally

the uh uh parents are sort of

placed in a special high regard um

in the in the buddhist tradition right

and like i've i've read the the tagalog

a couple times and it talks about it

there um

yeah i was wondering if because you know

this has come up

in my life especially because now i'm um

since the pandemic started i've been

staying with my parents

um and so i was wondering if you could

talk a little bit about

sort of uh what um

what the responsibilities are to parents

like from the buddhist perspective or

from your perspective

well from my perspective the more love

you can give them the better

okay so every day put

put aside 10 or 15 minutes and just

radiate loving kindness to them wherever

they happen

to be

and there are times when parents have to

tough and you don't really understand it

yourself and you

start holding a grudge towards them

forgive yourself for not understanding

forgive them

for not understanding

[Music]

and there was

a russian man that his dialect of

russian

they didn't have the word forgiveness in

so we came up with acceptance

okay everybody has a bad day every now

and then then they're

gruff and they they've just gone through

you don't understand what their problem

was

so you have a tendency to take it

personally

and and get mad at them and that sort of

thing so forgive yourself for that

and forgive them

also laugh

with them

get them to laugh okay

it's real important

have fun with your parents even though

your parents can be

strong with discipline and disappointed

that you didn't follow their advice and

all of that

you forgive them for that

but don't take it personally don't take

as they hate me

they don't they truly love you they

don't know how to express it sometimes

so you forgive them for not knowing it's

okay

one of the major mistakes that almost

everybody has

is they when they're around adults they

think and they'll

adults know everything and

geez they're just like you so you don't

know everything so

why do you think they should know

everything

well you can follow their advice if it

seems good to follow

but don't argue with them about it

okay send them loving kindness and send

them forgiveness

that will make life much more easy for

you

okay okay well okay thank you so much

you're welcome thank you

anybody else have a question

okay let's share some errors oh yes okay

okay i wanted to wait to see if there's

no other questions and jump in

because we've already asked one um

this is connected to the advice you gave

steve about the holy water the

loving kindness water right

seems

licking his fur out of his skin to the

extent that the skin is bare

and i was wondering if this we could use

this for

helping our cat too because you know

of course the doctor would give him

medicine but we can see that it's

some sort of a mental i would take a

little bit of water and put in his

drinking water

and every day give him a massage

him or her i don't know which kind of

him

okay

male cats especially love to get robbed

yes so just take some and while you're

doing that while you're touching him

give him loving kindness

yes okay

okay thank you you bet

every being wants the same thing

all beings want to be loved

so our job is to oblige them and give it

to them

okay thank you thank you

okay anybody else ante it's elizabeth i

was just gonna say

that i have a i have a two-year-old

dog and um he sits with me

in my meditation room and he has a

special

chair i'm not exaggerating and

he um all i have to do is

you know put my finger to my mouth like

and i swear he loves to be

in the room when i'm meditating

absolutely

goes into the deepest sleep

i'll be meditating and i'll hear

and i'm like and he's already been up

he's like should be active

it's just i'm and i'm not trying to be

trite

he's very drawn and attracted to

me when i'm sitting in meditation

yeah i'll tell you another dog story

i had a dog he just

appeared one day and he was

part pit bull and part um

[Music]

labrador

smiley yeah

he demanded to be in the room

whenever i gave a diamond talk and if we

i mean he didn't show up and we closed

the doors

he was sit outside the door and start

howling until

he couldn't hear me talk so we had to

let him in

and he was very insistent about that he

and he was right at my feet

and he would listen

and he really liked it

and he was our protector dog

now we're in the forest and we have some

cabins

up in the forest and sometimes

we have women that would come and we put

them in one of those cabins

he would stay with them the whole time

they he would get uh he would see that

after the domino talk

the woman would come out and go to her

cabin so he would stay right outside the

door

if she got up during the night had to go

to the bathroom he would be with her the

whole time

and he would wait at the door until she

got done and then walked back with her

and then at 5 30 she would come down

for the uh morning service

he was right there with her the whole

time

he knew that that it was his job to take

care of

anybody that had any fear he would be

right there and help him

quite an amazing dog and his name was

smiley

smiley yeah i called him smiley because

the first time i met him i

started petting him and he started

smiling

i couldn't think of any other name for

him

that's a beautiful he had he had a great

smile he really did

and very very intelligent

what kind of comment does a dog have

to get to live with

a buddhist monk who is actually living

the buddhist teachings

good karma right there that's good karma

yeah

and they gen the dogs generally even if

they've been mistreated

after a period of time they mellow out

i was just telling you about smiley

he was smart except

uh he liked to chase cars with the

wheels running moving

and he got run over and died

he was reborn in uh

to seat to heaven

is very unusual for an animal to be

reborn into

a heavenly realm very unusual

and some of the people there they

started seeing all of a sudden this

black dog was running around

and he would he would sometimes come

visit me

and we had another black dog and i

thought that black dog was

right beside me and i put my hand down

and i put my hand through him

and then i'd turn and look and look down

and watch him

run through the door so he came and

visited for quite a while

i haven't seen him for a long time now

he might have changed into a human being

which happens

wow thank you for sharing that story

[Music]

yeah we have a lot of animals around

here

um i'm i'm missing

one one that i haven't seen this year

and that that's a groundhog

you sign yes

agree oh good well i have to run outside

they're great fun to be around and they

understand what you talk when you're

talking to them

they won't run away they'll but if you

get too close to them then they'll start

to turn around and go away

but i like watching them run because

they're real

fat in the in the hind end and they kind

of waddle

it's it's real fun to watch them

[Music]

so i'll have to go out and make friends

with the new

new groundhog

so is there any other questions

okay let's hear some merit now

may suffering ones be suffering free and

the fear struck fearless be

may the grieving shed all grief and may

all beings find relief

may all beings share this merit that we

have thus

acquired for the acquisition of all

kinds of happiness

may beings inhabiting space and earth

gave us and not as a mighty power share

this merit of ours may they long protect

the buddhist dispensation

[Music]

so you all have fun and have a good week

thank you so much bronte okay thank you

bandy

oh you're welcome thank you see you

wednesday

oh yeah that's yeah okay

bye everybody david's my calendar he

keeps up with these things

you