From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZusCeAHZ-CE

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

[Music]

hello everyone

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i hope you all are well and happy

happy so the suta today is

the simile of the quail isn't that

coincidence

sometimes we have to go by coincidence

david opened up this book after thinking

about the simile of the quail

and opened it up to the simile of the

quail

so that's what we're going to do today

okay

thus have i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living

at the country of anguttara

apana at a town of theirs

named upana

then when it was morning the blessed one

dressed taking his bowl an outer robe

went into upon up her alms

when he went when he had wandered for

alms in apana and had returned from his

alms round

after his meal he went to a certain

grove

what are you doing um your signal is not

very strong

it said said stop

video

[Music]

what is that no that's okay i just want

to see what

hang on just a second we're figuring

things out here

that's okay okay i thought it picked up

the wrong

no it's on this just strong

okay after his meal he went to a certain

grove for the days abiding

having entered the grove he sat down at

the root of a tree for the days abiding

when it was morning the venerable udayan

dressed and taking his bowl and outer

robe

he too went into apana for alms

when he'd wandered for alms in upana and

had returned from his alms round

after his meal he went to that same

grove for the days abiding

having entered the grove he sat down at

the root of a tree for their days

abiding

then while a venerable udayan was alone

in meditation the following thought

arose in his mind

how many painful states has the blessed

one rid us

of how many pleasant

states has the blessed one brought us

how many unwholesome states has the

blessed one rid us of how many

wholesome states has a blessed one

brought us

then when it was evening the venerable

who died and

rose from his meditation and went to the

blessed one

after paying homage to him he sat down

at one side

and told him here venerable sir

while i was alone in meditation

the following thought arose in my mind

how many painful states has a blessed

one rid of

and how many wholesome states has a

blessed one brought us

venerable sir formally

we used to eat in the evening in the

morning

and during the day outside the proper

time

then there was an occasion

when the blessed one addressed amongst

us

monks please abandon that daytime

meal outside the proper time

the honorable sir i was upset and sad

thinking

faithful householders give us

food of various kinds during the day

outside the proper time yet the blessed

one tells

us to abandon it the sublime ones tell

us to

relinquish it

out of our love and respect for the

blessed one

and out of shame and fear of wrongdoing

we abandon that daytime meal

outside the proper time outside the

proper time is

the afternoon

okay we can have food up to high noon

right now where i am high noon

is about one o'clock

but when the time changes it's going to

be 12 o'clock so i have to eat before

12.

then we ate only in uh

in the evening and in the morning

there was an occasion when the blessed

one addressed amongst us

monks please abandon that night that

night meal

which is outside the proper time

so when we eat food we can eat from

when when the sun comes up

which is around 5 30 to 6 o'clock

until high noon

and we can have as many meals as we want

in that period of time

some monasteries because they have a lot

of young monks there

they they let them eat right before they

go out on alms around

and then they go out on alms around eat

another meal when they get back

and then eat a meal at around 11 o'clock

so they have three meals in the day

but it's jammed into a six hour period

i personally eat one meal a day because

i'm comfortable with that

and i stay healthy because of that

one of the things that's real important

to understand

as a monk there are

only a few things that i can have

outside the proper time

i can have jaggery i can have oil

i can have honey i can have sugar

things like that

but oh i can have salt

that's another thing

but sugar and salt both are

for health reasons which is really

odd to think but if we have any open

wounds

if we put sugar on the open wound

that'll stop it from breathing

and that's what they used to use when

they were fighting in

the olden times when they're using

swords and arrows and things like that

they would use

sugar and put on the wound and that

would help

heal the wound

so we consider it a medicine

unfortunately these days an awful lot of

monks

eat candy and wind up with diabetes

and it's it's starting to be pretty

rampant among monks

i don't have that problem so

don't worry about it

venerable sir i was upset and sad

thinking the blessed one tells us to

abandon

the more sumptuous of our two meals

the sublime one tells us to relinquish

it once venerable

sir a certain man had obtained

some soup during the day and said put

that aside

and we will all eat it together in the

evening

nearly all cooking is done at night

little by day out of our love

and respect for the blessed one

out of shame and fear of wrongdoing

we abandoned that nighttime meal

which was outside the proper time

it has happened venerable sir that monks

wandering for alms in the thick

darkness of the night have

walked into cesspits

fallen into sewers

walked into thorn bushes

and fallen over sleeping cows

that would be a shock

they have met hoodlums who had

already committed a crime

and who's planning one

and they have been sexually enticed by

women once venerable

sir i went wandering for alms in the

thick darkness of night

a woman washing a pot outside

saw me by a flash of lightning

and screamed in terror mercy me

the devil has come before us

told her sister i'm not the devil

i am a monk

waiting for alms

then it's a monk whose

moths died or whose paws

died better monk that you get your belly

cut open with a sharp butcher's knife

then this prowling for alms for your

belly's sake

in the darkness of night

one of the things i notice from being a

monk

is very seldom i go out at night

or if i'm going out at night i'm only

going to another monastery to give a

talk

or a person's house for a special

kind of blessing

and i've come to the conclusion when

when the sun goes down

people start to go a little bit crazy

and they do all kinds of things

that they wouldn't normally do during

the daytime

so i've concluded that it's a lot safer

for me

not to go out at night

people like to drink alcohol and then

drive and then they wind up in an

accident that could happen to me

inside of somebody else's car

so i i don't generally go out at night

that's the time

to sit

and

generally follow the dhamma rules

venerable sir when i recollected that

thought

how many painful states has the blessed

one rid us

of how many pleasant states has a

blessed one brought us

how many unwholesome states has a

blooded blessed one rid us

of and how many wholesome states has the

blessed one brought us

so too diane there are certain

misguided men here

who when i when told by me abandoned

this

say what such a trivial

such a a little thing this is

this recruits is much too exacting

and they do not abandon that and they

show

this courtesy towards me as well as

towards the monks

desiring for this kind of training

for them that thing becomes a strong

stout

tough unrotting tether

and a thick yoke

suppose who dying a quail

were tethered by a rotting creeping a

creeper

and would thereby expect injury

captivity or death now suppose someone

said that rotting creeper

by which that quail is tethered and

thereby

expecting injury captivity or

death is for her

feeble weak rotting cordless tether

would he be speaking rightly

no venerable serve for the quail

the rotting creeper by which it is

tethered

and thereby expects injury captivity or

death

is a strong stout tough unrotting

tether a thick yoke

so too diane there are certain misguided

men

here who when when told by me

abandon this do not abandon that

and they showed this courtesy towards me

as well as towards other monks

desirous of training

for that thing becomes a strong stout

tough

unrotting uh

tether a thick yoke

who diane there are some klansmen here

when told by me abandoned this

say what's such a trifle such a

little thing to be abandoned as this the

blessed one tells us to abandon

the sublime tells us to relinquish

yet they abandoned that and do not show

this

courtesy towards me or towards the monks

desirous of training having abandoned it

they live at ease unruffled

subsisting on others gifts

with mind aloof as a wild beers

for them that thing becomes a feeble

weak

rotting cordless tether

suppose udayan a royal tusker elephant

with tusks as long as a chariot pole

full in growth and stature

hybrid and accustomed to

battle where the tether

by a strong leather thongs

but it's simply twisting his body a

little could break and burst that thong

and then go where he likes

now suppose someone said that stout

leather the thumb

by which this royal tusker elephant

is tethered for him

a strong stout tough unrotting tether

a thick yoke would he be speaking

rightly

no venerable sir the stout leather

thongs

by which that royal tusker is tethered

which by simply twisting

his body a little

could break it and burst it and then go

where he wants

for him that that is a feeble

weak rotting cordless

tether so to

udayan there are certain clansmen here

when told by me abandon this abandon

that

and do not show this

courtesy towards me or towards

others other monks desires of training

having abandoned it they live at ease

unruffled subsisting on

others gifts with mind aloof

is a wild beers what we're actually

talking about here

is following the rules and when you

follow the rules

you don't have ever have a

a mind that is full of regret

doing something that you know that you

shouldn't

and it affects you in a negative way in

your practice

i'll give you an example i was in burma

and a monk who was a mahayana monk

came to that center and when he came

he could sit for three hours without

moving

which was pretty impressive

but he wanted to become a theravada monk

so he took off his mahayana groves

and started wearing the terra vada robes

and became a terror about a monk

now he knew

that one of the rules is you don't

eat after high noon

but he

disregarded that and he started feeling

guilty

because he knew he was breaking a rule

mahayana monks they say oh it doesn't

matter you can eat an evening meal and

we'll

call it

some kind of medicine

and they every night they eat an evening

meal

but the theravada we don't do that

after being there for three months

because he knew he was breaking a rule

he could not sit more than 10 minutes

before restlessness overtook him and he

had to get up and walk around

so he went from being a good monk

and sitting for long with the meditation

to being a monk that broke the rules

and it affected him and caused him to be

very restless

and

he didn't gain anything from being at

that monastery for three months

he was continually talking with other

people entertaining himself in whatever

way he could

because he was so restless

now while he was doing that i was

following the rules

and i went from sitting for an hour to

sitting for

between six and eight hours without

moving

why could i do that

because i didn't feel guilty

i didn't have restlessness

attacking me all the time

now the thing with

that i'm telling you is

keeping your precepts without breaking

them

one of the advantages of

following the precepts without breaking

them

is your mind tends to

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become collected very quickly

your mind settles down

with your daily activities

your mindfulness is sharp

and you are tempted to break one of the

precepts

but you notice

that desire before it turns into

action and then you can say no i'm not

going to do that

even with little white lies

now i've had students that have been

practicing a long time

and they

would get done with a meditation retreat

that really wasn't very good progress

and they would tell me now i can go back

to being the way i was

in other words breaking precepts and

doing that sort of thing

every time they would come to do another

retreat

the first 10 days of the retreat

they had a lot of restlessness and they

had to use the six artists a lot

and they had to put up with a lot of

extra pains

in their mind and in their body

after about 10 days then their mind

would be pure enough

be clean enough

without having a guilty feeling or a

guilty mind

from breaking the precepts

they then they started progressing in

the meditation

and they had one or two days of good

meditation

and then they had to go home because i

don't teach long retreats

some had been had been doing this for

many many retreats and they kept on

hearing

me say over and over you need to

follow the precepts don't break the

precepts

if you keep your precepts it turns into

a protection

for you and you become more mindful

with your daily activities

now that's what the buddha is talking

about here

if you break one of the precepts you are

going to feel guilty your mind is going

to say

sometimes very quietly i shouldn't have

done that

but then you kind of shine it on and

forget about it

but it always comes back to haunt you

it always comes back to cause your

meditation retreat

to be very slow progress because you

have to purify your mind

with the six hours and letting go of

craving

now what is craving

craving is the i like it

i don't like it it's the false belief

it's a beginning of the false belief in

the personal self

so that's unwholesome

and if you want to develop a wholesome

mind

quickly then you have to keep your

precepts all the time

now you're going to have a lot of

benefits from keeping your precepts

without breaking them

and that is

you're going to have a more and more

clear mind especially in

a an emergency situation

you're going to know the right thing to

do at the right time

sometimes i i'll i'll see a

car accident i

stop on the side of the road i get the

people that are driving me to stop

and we start radiating loving kindness

to everyone

in that's involved with the accident

they go from being very

unorganized and actually

not very helpful because they're running

around wondering what they should be

doing

instead of doing things that are

necessary

at the time

i'll give you another example

i had a student that her sister

was not very good at following precepts

and they

gossiped and they did they were never

being

honest with the things that they were

saying

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one of the kids that was

at the table with them they swallowed

an olive got stuck in the throat

and couldn't breathe

now the sister that was there that broke

the precepts

she started yelling help help help help

and she ran outside and she was running

down the street

yelling for help

and my student

got the olive out now that's the

difference between

keeping a precept and breaking a precept

and i personally have had

a time when i fell off a roof and i

broke my wrist

the closest person to me was

one of the helpers that didn't follow

precepts

at all now i'm lying on the ground and

i'm holding my wrist

and he comes up and he says are you all

right i said i think i broke my wrist

and what he did was grab my hand

and do this to my wrist

that was broken and i told him in no

uncertain terms that he better go away

and leave me alone

but that's the difference between

somebody that knows

that keeps their precepts they stay in

the present they don't get

rattled and do the wrong thing at the

wrong time

so that's one of the ways that the

precepts

are a protection for you

because in a tense situation your mind

becomes

more mindful more clear

uh another example i was at one time

when i was a layman i was a

a waiter and this is when they still had

ashtrays and there was

smoking in the

restaurant and somebody

put a cigarette and didn't tamp it out

all the way

and then somebody came along and took

the ashtray and threw it in a pile of

papers and right

right as that happened i was on the

other side of the room

and there started to be a lot of smoke

coming from the trash can

and two people standing right beside it

started yelling fire fire fire fire

and they didn't do anything and i'm on

the other side of the room and i look up

and i see the smoke coming up and i say

yeah that could be a fire

and i calmly walked over

took a picture of water and put the fire

out

that's the difference between following

the precepts and

not following the precepts your mind

becomes over

excited and you don't do the right thing

at the right time

now when i first started meditating back

in the 70s

when meditation especially vipassana was

starting to get popular

the teachers at that time they didn't

like the idea of

quote morality

so they didn't teach it as part of the

buddha's path

and that's been a mistake for a long

long time

the buddha's path is about purifying

your mind

and how do you purify your mind

you purify your mind by

being able to recognize when

a hindrance arises

you let it be now one of the

meditation practices is

you note this hindrance until it goes

away

and then you come back to your object of

meditation which was the breath

but that's wrong effort

according to buddha's teaching right

effort there's four different parts

first you recognize that there's a

hindrance

next you release the hindrance

you don't keep your attention on it

and relax

next bring up something wholesome

smile and bring

that relaxed

pure mind back to your object

of meditation and stay on your object

the meditation for as long as you can

now if you don't have this relaxed step

there are major problems for

you you can develop

good concentration but the kind of

concentration that you develop

is leading you away from the buddha's

path

and i'll show you why

your mind is on your object to

meditation

there's a distraction that occurs

when you're practicing noting

stay with that distraction until it goes

away

and then immediately come back to your

object of meditation

you're bringing the craving back to your

object the meditation

and that causes mine to develop a

different

kind of hindrance

a different kind of path

that does not purify your mind because

you're bringing the craving

back to your object to meditation

now when you practice the twin that i'm

teaching

your mind is on your object the

meditation gets distracted

release the distraction don't

keep your attention on that distraction

don't make the distraction any kind of a

big deal

relax and that means

letting go of craving

the way you recognize craving when it

arises

is the tension and tightness caused in

your head in your mind

and i've explained this many times over

you have your mind your your brain is

like this is two

lobes and there is

a membrane that goes around this

is called the meninges it's like a bag

every time you have a thought a

distracting

thought every time there's a distracting

feeling

every time there's a sensation

your brain expands out against that tent

that meninges and there's tension and

tightness there

and that is how you recognize

craving

see i spent 12 years in asia

trying to find out some simple answers i

wanted to know what craving was

and i never got a true answer

and i didn't find out the answer until i

came to the suttas

and started reading just the suttas

without commentaries

and when you're practicing mindfulness

of breathing

it says very plainly you train

thus

i shall tranquilize a bodily

formation on the in-breath

i shall tranquilize the bodily formation

on the out breath

so this changes the entire focus

of the meditation

when you're practicing mindfulness of

breathing

with other techniques

they tell you to focus on the breath

and see the beginning and the middle and

the

end of the in-breath and the space in

between

in the middle and or the beginning and

middle

and end of the in

in breath

and you do the same with the out breath

now what

that's teaching you is to

one pointedly observe

just the breath

with what i'm teaching you

you're using the breath

as the reminder

to let go of craving

on the in-breath you relax on the out

breath

you relax a distraction

comes you allow the distraction to be

there

you release that distraction

don't keep your attention on it

and then you relax

then you bring up wholesome smile

lighten your mind

when you don't have these two steps

the relax and

the bringing up the wholesome making

your mind light

you're putting in too much energy and

you cause yourself to get headaches

you're causing yourself to suffer

so it's real important

that you use the release relax smile

object and meditation stay with your

object

as long as you want that is

right effort

now an awful lot of people

they talk about the four noble truths

but they talk about it in a surface way

the four no noble truths are incredibly

deep

and the path leading

to the cessation of suffering

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is right effort

in other words the six r's

and the six r's will take you

all the way to are a hot ship

many students i have

who start following this and they're

really sincere

in their practice their progress in the

meditation is

fast

and quite often in a 10-day retreat

at least half of the students are

successful

because they follow the directions the

way they're given

now a lot of people that have been doing

meditation for years and years they want

to throw in something that worked with

another meditation

and that doesn't work

you can't add anything or subtract

anything to the path leading to the

cessation of suffering

you have to follow that path by

itself

then you have the potential

to be successful with your meditation

i have many students

that are sotapannas saktagamis

and onogamis

why because

they follow the directions without

adding anything or subtracting anything

and it's not my instruction i want you

to get clear with that

this is what the buddha is teaching

in the suttas right

effort is necessary

and it's necessary for you to understand

what right effort

is and that's what i've been talking

about the whole time

now if you're practicing

um let's say the vipassana mindfulness

of breathing

and you put your attention on your

nose or your upper lip or your abdomen

that is going away from the instructions

of the buddha

he doesn't give those kind of

instructions

he doesn't give you any physical

place to put keep your attention

on he just says

on the in-breath relax on the out breath

relax tranquilize the bodily formation

is what he actually

says but that comes down to relax

when you relax

look at what happens right after that

your mind is clear your mind is bright

you don't have distracting thoughts

and you have let go

of a hindrance

so there's a lot of benefit in

practicing

in this way

the closer you can stay

with having a light mind

now every time i give a retreat

one of the first things i tell everyone

which kind of goes against the grain of

most

most meditation practices

smile

you smile with your mind

you smile with your eyes even though

your eyes are closed

you have tension there as soon as you

smile with your eyes

it becomes softer

a little buddha smile on your lips

and a smile in your heart

so a smile is not just the big

toothy grin all the time

the more you smile

the better your mindfulness becomes

now the thing with

the smiling

and the improving of the mindfulness

is a lot of people don't

understand

the definition of mindfulness

it's like that's a word that you're

naturally supposed to understand

so i'm not going to tell you anymore

about it

and people wind up talking about

mindfulness and all kinds of peculiar

ways

but i'm going to give you the definition

of mindfulness that works

100 of the time and makes you go deeper

in your meditation

mindfulness is remembering to observe

how mind's attention moves from one

thing to another

how does that happen

we don't care about emotional upsets

that's on down the road with

the links of dependent origination when

you

relax your mind is

clear very

observant

and your mind is pure

why because you have let go of

craving

that was a major discovery that i had

now i had practiced straight vipassana

for 20 years

i was very successful i knew all of the

inside knowledges

from direct experience

but i wasn't satisfied with the end

result

for that 20 years my mind had become

more and more

critical and i i would get

just as angry as i ever did when i first

started

after 20 years of practice you would

think well it's not

supposed to be like that

i was just as highly emotional

as i was when i first started there was

something that wasn't

right with that practice and i didn't

know what it was

so i just stopped it all together

and i went to the suttas but i was

reading the suttas

and comparing what the suttas said

to what the visudi maga said

because that's supposed to be the

dictionary for meditation right

well i had

a monk friend come and he said i

understand you're teaching meditation

and i told him yes

and he said and i was teaching loving

kindness at the time

and he said well tell me how you're

teaching it

and after i got into it a bit

is that you know you're teaching it

correctly

but you're using the language

of the visuti maga

why don't you let go of the vasuli maga

and just go to the suttas

now i had read the sutas a lot

but i always was comparing it to the

vasudi maga and they didn't match

so when i had somebody tell me to put

the visuti maga aside

and just read the suttas

all of a sudden i could understand what

the sutas were talking about

and i had light bulbs going off in my

head

all over the place because i

read the satya patana suta

but i was always clouded by the vasudi

maga

rather than just reading the suta

itself and as soon as i started reading

the suta

itself i started really

understanding more and more clearly how

this whole process works

one of the problems that people

have with

the straight vipastana

is they don't recognize hindrances

as clearly as they need to be recognized

and they don't know how to let go of

those hindrances

they don't know how to purify their mind

they don't even understand what craving

actually is

well craving is desire

well there's more to it than that

craving causes tension and tightness in

your mind and in your body

and that's how you recognize when

craving is there

now if you want to get into a jhana

which was the forbidden thing to talk

about when i was practicing straight

vipassana oh

stay away from the jhana that's only for

psychic

abilities that's what i was told

well i have since run across

some definitions of jhana

that is quite different than what i had

ever known before

and i've taken these as

uh closer to the buddha's teaching than

anything else

jhanas are levels of

understanding

okay so you go to the first

jhana you're going to experience one

kind of understanding and how to get

there

and you you don't have hindrances

coming up and pulling your attention

away

when you're in a jhana your mind is

what the buddha calls the super mundane

state

okay

so you have super knowledge when you

are in the suta because you don't have

any hindrances

directing your mind attention away

and your mind has to be pure because

no hindrances are in your mind at that

time

and then you go to the second genre

that's a different level of your

understanding

and you start having a lot more

confidence in your practice because you

see

yeah this really does work

when i first came back to the united

states after being in asia for 12 years

i wanted to start calling this the oh

wow

meditation because you have oh

wows all the time you're understanding

you are teaching yourself

how to progress in the meditation

you are your own teacher

i'm a guide i'm not a teacher

if you're on the path i'll i'll

encourage you to stay on the path

if you start getting off the path a

little bit i'm going to encourage you to

come back and get on the path

that's my job

but you're teaching yourself

and you're teaching yourself how to

recognize

hindrances when they arise when they

pull your attention

away from your object of meditation

you're no longer in the drama when you

have the hindrance of rice

now you have to use the six artists and

then purify your mind and get back

into the jhana

and it's like every one of the jhanas is

a different kind of meditation

it's not exactly the same although

you're using the same

method to let go of distractions

you're still using the six r's

the path leading to the cessation of

suffering

now i i i only give 10 day retreats

because you don't need any longer than

that

isn't that amazing to hear

in 10 days in a retreat you will learn

more about buddhism because of your

direct experience than

you ever have learned before

this is why i read the suttas

and i read them to you every night

and you're understanding how this

process

works starts to grow

and like i said in a 10-day retreat i

have quite a few students

that are able to experience

nibbana

and i'm not saying this puffing up my

chest and saying

look at how good i am i'm not doing it

you're doing it

you should be understanding

how this process works

mine can be real sneaky with its

distractions and such

but as you use the six r's

when i first start uh i was talking

before about

telling everybody at the start of the

retreat

i want you to smile i want you to laugh

i want you to have fun

now if you go into a lot of different

retreats

you walk in and you see everybody and

they have this real stern look on their

face and deep lines in between their

eyes

and they're trying really hard

well your progress is incredibly slow

why because you're putting too much

effort into it

you have to learn to lighten your mind

not get over serious with it

and when you were in school and you had

a class that you really liked

what kind of grade did you get in that

class

good grades why because it was

fun for you

and the more fun you have with the

meditation

the sharper your mindfulness becomes

so what to do stop trying so hard

one of the biggest problems i have with

people that have been doing meditation

for a long time and come to me

is for me to get you to lighten up

have fun smile more

laugh at how crazy your mind can get

because it'll come up with all kinds of

nonsense

and mind by nature is crazy

and it's okay to be crazy just don't

take it personally

laugh with it now why

why would i say to laugh

meditation is supposed to be serious

right

but when you laugh at yourself

let's say for being angry

and you see that you're angry and you

kind of chuckle and go boy i'm really

going off the deep end here

as soon as you laugh you go

from i am angry

to it's only this anger

now what did you just do you just let go

of

craving

so when you left now

it's part of an impersonal process do i

want to walk around with this angry

feeling all day

i'm not that crazy let it go

now that's the truth of the dharma

the thing that you have to truly

understand

is the lighter and more fun

you have with the meditation

the easier it is to see

when your mind starts to get heavy and

gets caught up in the mud

and when you recognize that then you use

the six

r's and you let go of that craving

and you smile a little a little bit for

getting caught

and come back to your object of

meditation

with an uplifted mind

now there's supposed to be a lot of joy

in the meditation itself

and what i was told continually

anytime i had joy when i was practicing

straight vipassana

i had my teachers say don't

get attached

you don't have to be attached to joy

you allow it to be there as long as it's

going to be there

you don't even keep your attention on it

if you get

put your attention on it and stay with

the joy

then you are attached

you're taking it personally

but the joy will come up

your mind will get much lighter and with

that

lighter mind your

observation power becomes stronger

and you start seeing when you first

start getting caught

now this is the advantage of keeping

your precepts

because you'll notice this more quickly

and you'll be able to let it be and

relax and smile and come back to your

object to meditation more easily

now i've had some students that go yeah

yeah yeah

they they ask me

how can i be more wealthy i want i want

to be rich

being rich is easy

and the first thing i tell them is you

have to practice your generosity

now people think generosity means

well you got to give to the monks

no generosity means being kind to other

people

and helping them overcome

their suffering you're

giving away your loving kindness

you're giving away your compassion

and helping other people to overcome

their suffering

that's generosity it's not just about

giving food or giving material things

generosity is helping other

people to smile

helping other people to

let go of the suffering

and that's what the sangha community

is supposed to be all about

any of your friends that's suffering

do things to make them smile things to

make them laugh

do things that help uplift

their mind sometimes it's not saying

anything it's just radiating compassion

or radiating loving kindness

to that person and their situation

and their family

if you want to affect the world around

you in a positive way

then radiate loving kindness to the

world

you want to affect everybody around you

in a nice way

love them because that's what they're

looking for

everybody is looking for love

and to be accepted

and to be happy so help them

that's generosity the second thing that

i told

this person that they wanted to be rich

i told

him okay that's the first step

now the second step is taking

the five precepts and keeping them

without

breaking them at all anytime you break a

hindrance

you feel guilty you might just shrug it

off and say ah that was that was nothing

it was just a little thing

but no it's a big thing

and he finally

said okay okay i'll do that

how long do i have to do that how long

do i have to keep my precepts

i said well we'll start at 100 years and

go up from there

keep your precepts and you will see

major benefits starting to

occur your wholesome

uplifted mind

allows other it's almost

magical things to occur like what

happened with david today

he was thinking about this suta on the

quail

he opened up the book and there was a

suta of the quail

and he had he had he had a good laugh

with that

how much fun is that

and sometimes you'll start saying things

that other people are thinking and

they'll go can you read my mind

and no i don't read minds

i get accused of it all the time but i

don't do it on purpose i don't know i'm

doing it

i'm not reading your mind i'm

saying what's coming out and it happens

to be what you were thinking

i don't know how that happens

it doesn't happen all the time and it's

certainly not me that's doing

it but as your mind gets

more and more pure

more and more uplifted

you become more and more sensitive

now when the buddha is talking about

getting into jhanas and some of the

experiences you can have

while you're in the jhana you can start

developing what's called the divine eye

and you can also start developing what's

called the divine

ear the divine eye

what it basically means is you'll be

able to see

beings in other realms

i have students that do that

and they hear

beings in other realms so they can go

visit

one of the heavenly realms and hang out

and talk with the

the davis that are there or brahmanas

that are there

almost everybody has

that ability

as you quiet your mind down and become

more

pure keeping your precepts without

breaking them

this will develop by itself

and i i have some students that told me

they could do that

and i said okay

now i'm halfway around the world

i want you to visit my mother's house

i told her what it was in california

it was in a town called escondido

i said i want you to see the

street that she lives on and i want to

see the ad

if you can see the address and she

directed her mind to be able to do that

and she did it she lived on 8th avenue

and it was 837

was the number of the house

and she saw my my mother standing in the

doorway

in the open door and she told me and i

said what color

clothes did she have on well my mother

that day

had blue clothes and she it was a nice

dress and she was getting ready to go

somewhere

so she said she's wearing blue

so i called up my mother right then

and i ask her what color clothes you

have

on right now and she said blue

i said great thanks mom

and then i hung up and started talking

to this other lady

she was able to see

with the divine eye

and she all she had to do was point her

mind in the direction she wanted it to

go

she would see davis

and because she had the divine ear she

could talk to them

she was chinese and

malay

so she was her first language was

chinese and i said

what language did you talk to the davis

in was it english

no it's chinese

it doesn't matter what language

you you speak to the devas will be able

to communicate with you they can tell

you all kinds of fun

things an

interesting things

you can develop seeing

past lifetimes

but i won't teach you that until you get

to a certain level in your meditation

because you have to have strong

equanimity

we've all done things that are kind of

scary

and not so nice in the past

and if you don't have that equanimity

then it's it's going to be a terrible

experience for

you

so these things are possible through the

meditation

and it all starts with the six

r's

when you talk about the

eightfold path

the first that they talk about is

they call it right view and i don't

like that definition very much so i

call it harmonious

perspective and the harmonious

perspective

is always what occurs right after you

let go and relax

let go of the craving you have a

harmonious perspective

that means that you're not taking

anything personally

you're seeing the impersonal nature of

everything

craving causes you

to have the wrong view

and the wrong view is taking

things personally and the reason you

take things personally be

is because in the past you broke a

precept

and

you feel ashamed or

[Music]

guilty for breaking that precept

and the way you let go of it

is by practicing right view is by

practicing the six

r's

you

[Music]

hello everyone

[Music]

i hope you all are well and happy

happy so the suta today is

the simile of the quail isn't that

coincidence

sometimes we have to go by coincidence

david opened up this book after thinking

about the simile of the quail

and opened it up to the simile of the

quail

so that's what we're going to do today

okay

thus have i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living

at the country of anguttara

apana at a town of theirs

named upana

then when it was morning the blessed one

dressed taking his bowl an outer robe

went into upon up her alms

when he went when he had wandered for

alms in apana and had returned from his

alms round

after his meal he went to a certain

grove

what are you doing um your signal is not

very strong

it said said stop

video

[Music]

what is that no that's okay i just want

to see what

hang on just a second we're figuring

things out here

that's okay okay i thought it picked up

the wrong

no it's on this just strong

okay after his meal he went to a certain

grove for the days abiding

having entered the grove he sat down at

the root of a tree for the days abiding

when it was morning the venerable udayan

dressed and taking his bowl and outer

robe

he too went into apana for alms

when he'd wandered for alms in upana and

had returned from his alms round

after his meal he went to that same

grove for the days abiding

having entered the grove he sat down at

the root of a tree for their days

abiding

then while a venerable udayan was alone

in meditation the following thought

arose in his mind

how many painful states has the blessed

one rid us

of how many pleasant

states has the blessed one brought us

how many unwholesome states has the

blessed one rid us of how many

wholesome states has a blessed one

brought us

then when it was evening the venerable

who died and

rose from his meditation and went to the

blessed one

after paying homage to him he sat down

at one side

and told him here venerable sir

while i was alone in meditation

the following thought arose in my mind

how many painful states has a blessed

one rid of

and how many wholesome states has a

blessed one brought us

venerable sir formally

we used to eat in the evening in the

morning

and during the day outside the proper

time

then there was an occasion

when the blessed one addressed amongst

us

monks please abandon that daytime

meal outside the proper time

the honorable sir i was upset and sad

thinking

faithful householders give us

food of various kinds during the day

outside the proper time yet the blessed

one tells

us to abandon it the sublime ones tell

us to

relinquish it

out of our love and respect for the

blessed one

and out of shame and fear of wrongdoing

we abandon that daytime meal

outside the proper time outside the

proper time is

the afternoon

okay we can have food up to high noon

right now where i am high noon

is about one o'clock

but when the time changes it's going to

be 12 o'clock so i have to eat before

12.

then we ate only in uh

in the evening and in the morning

there was an occasion when the blessed

one addressed amongst us

monks please abandon that night that

night meal

which is outside the proper time

so when we eat food we can eat from

when when the sun comes up

which is around 5 30 to 6 o'clock

until high noon

and we can have as many meals as we want

in that period of time

some monasteries because they have a lot

of young monks there

they they let them eat right before they

go out on alms around

and then they go out on alms around eat

another meal when they get back

and then eat a meal at around 11 o'clock

so they have three meals in the day

but it's jammed into a six hour period

i personally eat one meal a day because

i'm comfortable with that

and i stay healthy because of that

one of the things that's real important

to understand

as a monk there are

only a few things that i can have

outside the proper time

i can have jaggery i can have oil

i can have honey i can have sugar

things like that

but oh i can have salt

that's another thing

but sugar and salt both are

for health reasons which is really

odd to think but if we have any open

wounds

if we put sugar on the open wound

that'll stop it from breathing

and that's what they used to use when

they were fighting in

the olden times when they're using

swords and arrows and things like that

they would use

sugar and put on the wound and that

would help

heal the wound

so we consider it a medicine

unfortunately these days an awful lot of

monks

eat candy and wind up with diabetes

and it's it's starting to be pretty

rampant among monks

i don't have that problem so

don't worry about it

venerable sir i was upset and sad

thinking the blessed one tells us to

abandon

the more sumptuous of our two meals

the sublime one tells us to relinquish

it once venerable

sir a certain man had obtained

some soup during the day and said put

that aside

and we will all eat it together in the

evening

nearly all cooking is done at night

little by day out of our love

and respect for the blessed one

out of shame and fear of wrongdoing

we abandoned that nighttime meal

which was outside the proper time

it has happened venerable sir that monks

wandering for alms in the thick

darkness of the night have

walked into cesspits

fallen into sewers

walked into thorn bushes

and fallen over sleeping cows

that would be a shock

they have met hoodlums who had

already committed a crime

and who's planning one

and they have been sexually enticed by

women once venerable

sir i went wandering for alms in the

thick darkness of night

a woman washing a pot outside

saw me by a flash of lightning

and screamed in terror mercy me

the devil has come before us

told her sister i'm not the devil

i am a monk

waiting for alms

then it's a monk whose

moths died or whose paws

died better monk that you get your belly

cut open with a sharp butcher's knife

then this prowling for alms for your

belly's sake

in the darkness of night

one of the things i notice from being a

monk

is very seldom i go out at night

or if i'm going out at night i'm only

going to another monastery to give a

talk

or a person's house for a special

kind of blessing

and i've come to the conclusion when

when the sun goes down

people start to go a little bit crazy

and they do all kinds of things

that they wouldn't normally do during

the daytime

so i've concluded that it's a lot safer

for me

not to go out at night

people like to drink alcohol and then

drive and then they wind up in an

accident that could happen to me

inside of somebody else's car

so i i don't generally go out at night

that's the time

to sit

and

generally follow the dhamma rules

venerable sir when i recollected that

thought

how many painful states has the blessed

one rid us

of how many pleasant states has a

blessed one brought us

how many unwholesome states has a

blooded blessed one rid us

of and how many wholesome states has the

blessed one brought us

so too diane there are certain

misguided men here

who when i when told by me abandoned

this

say what such a trivial

such a a little thing this is

this recruits is much too exacting

and they do not abandon that and they

show

this courtesy towards me as well as

towards the monks

desiring for this kind of training

for them that thing becomes a strong

stout

tough unrotting tether

and a thick yoke

suppose who dying a quail

were tethered by a rotting creeping a

creeper

and would thereby expect injury

captivity or death now suppose someone

said that rotting creeper

by which that quail is tethered and

thereby

expecting injury captivity or

death is for her

feeble weak rotting cordless tether

would he be speaking rightly

no venerable serve for the quail

the rotting creeper by which it is

tethered

and thereby expects injury captivity or

death

is a strong stout tough unrotting

tether a thick yoke

so too diane there are certain misguided

men

here who when when told by me

abandon this do not abandon that

and they showed this courtesy towards me

as well as towards other monks

desirous of training

for that thing becomes a strong stout

tough

unrotting uh

tether a thick yoke

who diane there are some klansmen here

when told by me abandoned this

say what's such a trifle such a

little thing to be abandoned as this the

blessed one tells us to abandon

the sublime tells us to relinquish

yet they abandoned that and do not show

this

courtesy towards me or towards the monks

desirous of training having abandoned it

they live at ease unruffled

subsisting on others gifts

with mind aloof as a wild beers

for them that thing becomes a feeble

weak

rotting cordless tether

suppose udayan a royal tusker elephant

with tusks as long as a chariot pole

full in growth and stature

hybrid and accustomed to

battle where the tether

by a strong leather thongs

but it's simply twisting his body a

little could break and burst that thong

and then go where he likes

now suppose someone said that stout

leather the thumb

by which this royal tusker elephant

is tethered for him

a strong stout tough unrotting tether

a thick yoke would he be speaking

rightly

no venerable sir the stout leather

thongs

by which that royal tusker is tethered

which by simply twisting

his body a little

could break it and burst it and then go

where he wants

for him that that is a feeble

weak rotting cordless

tether so to

udayan there are certain clansmen here

when told by me abandon this abandon

that

and do not show this

courtesy towards me or towards

others other monks desires of training

having abandoned it they live at ease

unruffled subsisting on

others gifts with mind aloof

is a wild beers what we're actually

talking about here

is following the rules and when you

follow the rules

you don't have ever have a

a mind that is full of regret

doing something that you know that you

shouldn't

and it affects you in a negative way in

your practice

i'll give you an example i was in burma

and a monk who was a mahayana monk

came to that center and when he came

he could sit for three hours without

moving

which was pretty impressive

but he wanted to become a theravada monk

so he took off his mahayana groves

and started wearing the terra vada robes

and became a terror about a monk

now he knew

that one of the rules is you don't

eat after high noon

but he

disregarded that and he started feeling

guilty

because he knew he was breaking a rule

mahayana monks they say oh it doesn't

matter you can eat an evening meal and

we'll

call it

some kind of medicine

and they every night they eat an evening

meal

but the theravada we don't do that

after being there for three months

because he knew he was breaking a rule

he could not sit more than 10 minutes

before restlessness overtook him and he

had to get up and walk around

so he went from being a good monk

and sitting for long with the meditation

to being a monk that broke the rules

and it affected him and caused him to be

very restless

and

he didn't gain anything from being at

that monastery for three months

he was continually talking with other

people entertaining himself in whatever

way he could

because he was so restless

now while he was doing that i was

following the rules

and i went from sitting for an hour to

sitting for

between six and eight hours without

moving

why could i do that

because i didn't feel guilty

i didn't have restlessness

attacking me all the time

now the thing with

that i'm telling you is

keeping your precepts without breaking

them

one of the advantages of

following the precepts without breaking

them

is your mind tends to

[Music]

become collected very quickly

your mind settles down

with your daily activities

your mindfulness is sharp

and you are tempted to break one of the

precepts

but you notice

that desire before it turns into

action and then you can say no i'm not

going to do that

even with little white lies

now i've had students that have been

practicing a long time

and they

would get done with a meditation retreat

that really wasn't very good progress

and they would tell me now i can go back

to being the way i was

in other words breaking precepts and

doing that sort of thing

every time they would come to do another

retreat

the first 10 days of the retreat

they had a lot of restlessness and they

had to use the six artists a lot

and they had to put up with a lot of

extra pains

in their mind and in their body

after about 10 days then their mind

would be pure enough

be clean enough

without having a guilty feeling or a

guilty mind

from breaking the precepts

they then they started progressing in

the meditation

and they had one or two days of good

meditation

and then they had to go home because i

don't teach long retreats

some had been had been doing this for

many many retreats and they kept on

hearing

me say over and over you need to

follow the precepts don't break the

precepts

if you keep your precepts it turns into

a protection

for you and you become more mindful

with your daily activities

now that's what the buddha is talking

about here

if you break one of the precepts you are

going to feel guilty your mind is going

to say

sometimes very quietly i shouldn't have

done that

but then you kind of shine it on and

forget about it

but it always comes back to haunt you

it always comes back to cause your

meditation retreat

to be very slow progress because you

have to purify your mind

with the six hours and letting go of

craving

now what is craving

craving is the i like it

i don't like it it's the false belief

it's a beginning of the false belief in

the personal self

so that's unwholesome

and if you want to develop a wholesome

mind

quickly then you have to keep your

precepts all the time

now you're going to have a lot of

benefits from keeping your precepts

without breaking them

and that is

you're going to have a more and more

clear mind especially in

a an emergency situation

you're going to know the right thing to

do at the right time

sometimes i i'll i'll see a

car accident i

stop on the side of the road i get the

people that are driving me to stop

and we start radiating loving kindness

to everyone

in that's involved with the accident

they go from being very

unorganized and actually

not very helpful because they're running

around wondering what they should be

doing

instead of doing things that are

necessary

at the time

i'll give you another example

i had a student that her sister

was not very good at following precepts

and they

gossiped and they did they were never

being

honest with the things that they were

saying

[Music]

one of the kids that was

at the table with them they swallowed

an olive got stuck in the throat

and couldn't breathe

now the sister that was there that broke

the precepts

she started yelling help help help help

and she ran outside and she was running

down the street

yelling for help

and my student

got the olive out now that's the

difference between

keeping a precept and breaking a precept

and i personally have had

a time when i fell off a roof and i

broke my wrist

the closest person to me was

one of the helpers that didn't follow

precepts

at all now i'm lying on the ground and

i'm holding my wrist

and he comes up and he says are you all

right i said i think i broke my wrist

and what he did was grab my hand

and do this to my wrist

that was broken and i told him in no

uncertain terms that he better go away

and leave me alone

but that's the difference between

somebody that knows

that keeps their precepts they stay in

the present they don't get

rattled and do the wrong thing at the

wrong time

so that's one of the ways that the

precepts

are a protection for you

because in a tense situation your mind

becomes

more mindful more clear

uh another example i was at one time

when i was a layman i was a

a waiter and this is when they still had

ashtrays and there was

smoking in the

restaurant and somebody

put a cigarette and didn't tamp it out

all the way

and then somebody came along and took

the ashtray and threw it in a pile of

papers and right

right as that happened i was on the

other side of the room

and there started to be a lot of smoke

coming from the trash can

and two people standing right beside it

started yelling fire fire fire fire

and they didn't do anything and i'm on

the other side of the room and i look up

and i see the smoke coming up and i say

yeah that could be a fire

and i calmly walked over

took a picture of water and put the fire

out

that's the difference between following

the precepts and

not following the precepts your mind

becomes over

excited and you don't do the right thing

at the right time

now when i first started meditating back

in the 70s

when meditation especially vipassana was

starting to get popular

the teachers at that time they didn't

like the idea of

quote morality

so they didn't teach it as part of the

buddha's path

and that's been a mistake for a long

long time

the buddha's path is about purifying

your mind

and how do you purify your mind

you purify your mind by

being able to recognize when

a hindrance arises

you let it be now one of the

meditation practices is

you note this hindrance until it goes

away

and then you come back to your object of

meditation which was the breath

but that's wrong effort

according to buddha's teaching right

effort there's four different parts

first you recognize that there's a

hindrance

next you release the hindrance

you don't keep your attention on it

and relax

next bring up something wholesome

smile and bring

that relaxed

pure mind back to your object

of meditation and stay on your object

the meditation for as long as you can

now if you don't have this relaxed step

there are major problems for

you you can develop

good concentration but the kind of

concentration that you develop

is leading you away from the buddha's

path

and i'll show you why

your mind is on your object to

meditation

there's a distraction that occurs

when you're practicing noting

stay with that distraction until it goes

away

and then immediately come back to your

object of meditation

you're bringing the craving back to your

object the meditation

and that causes mine to develop a

different

kind of hindrance

a different kind of path

that does not purify your mind because

you're bringing the craving

back to your object to meditation

now when you practice the twin that i'm

teaching

your mind is on your object the

meditation gets distracted

release the distraction don't

keep your attention on that distraction

don't make the distraction any kind of a

big deal

relax and that means

letting go of craving

the way you recognize craving when it

arises

is the tension and tightness caused in

your head in your mind

and i've explained this many times over

you have your mind your your brain is

like this is two

lobes and there is

a membrane that goes around this

is called the meninges it's like a bag

every time you have a thought a

distracting

thought every time there's a distracting

feeling

every time there's a sensation

your brain expands out against that tent

that meninges and there's tension and

tightness there

and that is how you recognize

craving

see i spent 12 years in asia

trying to find out some simple answers i

wanted to know what craving was

and i never got a true answer

and i didn't find out the answer until i

came to the suttas

and started reading just the suttas

without commentaries

and when you're practicing mindfulness

of breathing

it says very plainly you train

thus

i shall tranquilize a bodily

formation on the in-breath

i shall tranquilize the bodily formation

on the out breath

so this changes the entire focus

of the meditation

when you're practicing mindfulness of

breathing

with other techniques

they tell you to focus on the breath

and see the beginning and the middle and

the

end of the in-breath and the space in

between

in the middle and or the beginning and

middle

and end of the in

in breath

and you do the same with the out breath

now what

that's teaching you is to

one pointedly observe

just the breath

with what i'm teaching you

you're using the breath

as the reminder

to let go of craving

on the in-breath you relax on the out

breath

you relax a distraction

comes you allow the distraction to be

there

you release that distraction

don't keep your attention on it

and then you relax

then you bring up wholesome smile

lighten your mind

when you don't have these two steps

the relax and

the bringing up the wholesome making

your mind light

you're putting in too much energy and

you cause yourself to get headaches

you're causing yourself to suffer

so it's real important

that you use the release relax smile

object and meditation stay with your

object

as long as you want that is

right effort

now an awful lot of people

they talk about the four noble truths

but they talk about it in a surface way

the four no noble truths are incredibly

deep

and the path leading

to the cessation of suffering

[Music]

is right effort

in other words the six r's

and the six r's will take you

all the way to are a hot ship

many students i have

who start following this and they're

really sincere

in their practice their progress in the

meditation is

fast

and quite often in a 10-day retreat

at least half of the students are

successful

because they follow the directions the

way they're given

now a lot of people that have been doing

meditation for years and years they want

to throw in something that worked with

another meditation

and that doesn't work

you can't add anything or subtract

anything to the path leading to the

cessation of suffering

you have to follow that path by

itself

then you have the potential

to be successful with your meditation

i have many students

that are sotapannas saktagamis

and onogamis

why because

they follow the directions without

adding anything or subtracting anything

and it's not my instruction i want you

to get clear with that

this is what the buddha is teaching

in the suttas right

effort is necessary

and it's necessary for you to understand

what right effort

is and that's what i've been talking

about the whole time

now if you're practicing

um let's say the vipassana mindfulness

of breathing

and you put your attention on your

nose or your upper lip or your abdomen

that is going away from the instructions

of the buddha

he doesn't give those kind of

instructions

he doesn't give you any physical

place to put keep your attention

on he just says

on the in-breath relax on the out breath

relax tranquilize the bodily formation

is what he actually

says but that comes down to relax

when you relax

look at what happens right after that

your mind is clear your mind is bright

you don't have distracting thoughts

and you have let go

of a hindrance

so there's a lot of benefit in

practicing

in this way

the closer you can stay

with having a light mind

now every time i give a retreat

one of the first things i tell everyone

which kind of goes against the grain of

most

most meditation practices

smile

you smile with your mind

you smile with your eyes even though

your eyes are closed

you have tension there as soon as you

smile with your eyes

it becomes softer

a little buddha smile on your lips

and a smile in your heart

so a smile is not just the big

toothy grin all the time

the more you smile

the better your mindfulness becomes

now the thing with

the smiling

and the improving of the mindfulness

is a lot of people don't

understand

the definition of mindfulness

it's like that's a word that you're

naturally supposed to understand

so i'm not going to tell you anymore

about it

and people wind up talking about

mindfulness and all kinds of peculiar

ways

but i'm going to give you the definition

of mindfulness that works

100 of the time and makes you go deeper

in your meditation

mindfulness is remembering to observe

how mind's attention moves from one

thing to another

how does that happen

we don't care about emotional upsets

that's on down the road with

the links of dependent origination when

you

relax your mind is

clear very

observant

and your mind is pure

why because you have let go of

craving

that was a major discovery that i had

now i had practiced straight vipassana

for 20 years

i was very successful i knew all of the

inside knowledges

from direct experience

but i wasn't satisfied with the end

result

for that 20 years my mind had become

more and more

critical and i i would get

just as angry as i ever did when i first

started

after 20 years of practice you would

think well it's not

supposed to be like that

i was just as highly emotional

as i was when i first started there was

something that wasn't

right with that practice and i didn't

know what it was

so i just stopped it all together

and i went to the suttas but i was

reading the suttas

and comparing what the suttas said

to what the visudi maga said

because that's supposed to be the

dictionary for meditation right

well i had

a monk friend come and he said i

understand you're teaching meditation

and i told him yes

and he said and i was teaching loving

kindness at the time

and he said well tell me how you're

teaching it

and after i got into it a bit

is that you know you're teaching it

correctly

but you're using the language

of the visuti maga

why don't you let go of the vasuli maga

and just go to the suttas

now i had read the sutas a lot

but i always was comparing it to the

vasudi maga and they didn't match

so when i had somebody tell me to put

the visuti maga aside

and just read the suttas

all of a sudden i could understand what

the sutas were talking about

and i had light bulbs going off in my

head

all over the place because i

read the satya patana suta

but i was always clouded by the vasudi

maga

rather than just reading the suta

itself and as soon as i started reading

the suta

itself i started really

understanding more and more clearly how

this whole process works

one of the problems that people

have with

the straight vipastana

is they don't recognize hindrances

as clearly as they need to be recognized

and they don't know how to let go of

those hindrances

they don't know how to purify their mind

they don't even understand what craving

actually is

well craving is desire

well there's more to it than that

craving causes tension and tightness in

your mind and in your body

and that's how you recognize when

craving is there

now if you want to get into a jhana

which was the forbidden thing to talk

about when i was practicing straight

vipassana oh

stay away from the jhana that's only for

psychic

abilities that's what i was told

well i have since run across

some definitions of jhana

that is quite different than what i had

ever known before

and i've taken these as

uh closer to the buddha's teaching than

anything else

jhanas are levels of

understanding

okay so you go to the first

jhana you're going to experience one

kind of understanding and how to get

there

and you you don't have hindrances

coming up and pulling your attention

away

when you're in a jhana your mind is

what the buddha calls the super mundane

state

okay

so you have super knowledge when you

are in the suta because you don't have

any hindrances

directing your mind attention away

and your mind has to be pure because

no hindrances are in your mind at that

time

and then you go to the second genre

that's a different level of your

understanding

and you start having a lot more

confidence in your practice because you

see

yeah this really does work

when i first came back to the united

states after being in asia for 12 years

i wanted to start calling this the oh

wow

meditation because you have oh

wows all the time you're understanding

you are teaching yourself

how to progress in the meditation

you are your own teacher

i'm a guide i'm not a teacher

if you're on the path i'll i'll

encourage you to stay on the path

if you start getting off the path a

little bit i'm going to encourage you to

come back and get on the path

that's my job

but you're teaching yourself

and you're teaching yourself how to

recognize

hindrances when they arise when they

pull your attention

away from your object of meditation

you're no longer in the drama when you

have the hindrance of rice

now you have to use the six artists and

then purify your mind and get back

into the jhana

and it's like every one of the jhanas is

a different kind of meditation

it's not exactly the same although

you're using the same

method to let go of distractions

you're still using the six r's

the path leading to the cessation of

suffering

now i i i only give 10 day retreats

because you don't need any longer than

that

isn't that amazing to hear

in 10 days in a retreat you will learn

more about buddhism because of your

direct experience than

you ever have learned before

this is why i read the suttas

and i read them to you every night

and you're understanding how this

process

works starts to grow

and like i said in a 10-day retreat i

have quite a few students

that are able to experience

nibbana

and i'm not saying this puffing up my

chest and saying

look at how good i am i'm not doing it

you're doing it

you should be understanding

how this process works

mine can be real sneaky with its

distractions and such

but as you use the six r's

when i first start uh i was talking

before about

telling everybody at the start of the

retreat

i want you to smile i want you to laugh

i want you to have fun

now if you go into a lot of different

retreats

you walk in and you see everybody and

they have this real stern look on their

face and deep lines in between their

eyes

and they're trying really hard

well your progress is incredibly slow

why because you're putting too much

effort into it

you have to learn to lighten your mind

not get over serious with it

and when you were in school and you had

a class that you really liked

what kind of grade did you get in that

class

good grades why because it was

fun for you

and the more fun you have with the

meditation

the sharper your mindfulness becomes

so what to do stop trying so hard

one of the biggest problems i have with

people that have been doing meditation

for a long time and come to me

is for me to get you to lighten up

have fun smile more

laugh at how crazy your mind can get

because it'll come up with all kinds of

nonsense

and mind by nature is crazy

and it's okay to be crazy just don't

take it personally

laugh with it now why

why would i say to laugh

meditation is supposed to be serious

right

but when you laugh at yourself

let's say for being angry

and you see that you're angry and you

kind of chuckle and go boy i'm really

going off the deep end here

as soon as you laugh you go

from i am angry

to it's only this anger

now what did you just do you just let go

of

craving

so when you left now

it's part of an impersonal process do i

want to walk around with this angry

feeling all day

i'm not that crazy let it go

now that's the truth of the dharma

the thing that you have to truly

understand

is the lighter and more fun

you have with the meditation

the easier it is to see

when your mind starts to get heavy and

gets caught up in the mud

and when you recognize that then you use

the six

r's and you let go of that craving

and you smile a little a little bit for

getting caught

and come back to your object of

meditation

with an uplifted mind

now there's supposed to be a lot of joy

in the meditation itself

and what i was told continually

anytime i had joy when i was practicing

straight vipassana

i had my teachers say don't

get attached

you don't have to be attached to joy

you allow it to be there as long as it's

going to be there

you don't even keep your attention on it

if you get

put your attention on it and stay with

the joy

then you are attached

you're taking it personally

but the joy will come up

your mind will get much lighter and with

that

lighter mind your

observation power becomes stronger

and you start seeing when you first

start getting caught

now this is the advantage of keeping

your precepts

because you'll notice this more quickly

and you'll be able to let it be and

relax and smile and come back to your

object to meditation more easily

now i've had some students that go yeah

yeah yeah

they they ask me

how can i be more wealthy i want i want

to be rich

being rich is easy

and the first thing i tell them is you

have to practice your generosity

now people think generosity means

well you got to give to the monks

no generosity means being kind to other

people

and helping them overcome

their suffering you're

giving away your loving kindness

you're giving away your compassion

and helping other people to overcome

their suffering

that's generosity it's not just about

giving food or giving material things

generosity is helping other

people to smile

helping other people to

let go of the suffering

and that's what the sangha community

is supposed to be all about

any of your friends that's suffering

do things to make them smile things to

make them laugh

do things that help uplift

their mind sometimes it's not saying

anything it's just radiating compassion

or radiating loving kindness

to that person and their situation

and their family

if you want to affect the world around

you in a positive way

then radiate loving kindness to the

world

you want to affect everybody around you

in a nice way

love them because that's what they're

looking for

everybody is looking for love

and to be accepted

and to be happy so help them

that's generosity the second thing that

i told

this person that they wanted to be rich

i told

him okay that's the first step

now the second step is taking

the five precepts and keeping them

without

breaking them at all anytime you break a

hindrance

you feel guilty you might just shrug it

off and say ah that was that was nothing

it was just a little thing

but no it's a big thing

and he finally

said okay okay i'll do that

how long do i have to do that how long

do i have to keep my precepts

i said well we'll start at 100 years and

go up from there

keep your precepts and you will see

major benefits starting to

occur your wholesome

uplifted mind

allows other it's almost

magical things to occur like what

happened with david today

he was thinking about this suta on the

quail

he opened up the book and there was a

suta of the quail

and he had he had he had a good laugh

with that

how much fun is that

and sometimes you'll start saying things

that other people are thinking and

they'll go can you read my mind

and no i don't read minds

i get accused of it all the time but i

don't do it on purpose i don't know i'm

doing it

i'm not reading your mind i'm

saying what's coming out and it happens

to be what you were thinking

i don't know how that happens

it doesn't happen all the time and it's

certainly not me that's doing

it but as your mind gets

more and more pure

more and more uplifted

you become more and more sensitive

now when the buddha is talking about

getting into jhanas and some of the

experiences you can have

while you're in the jhana you can start

developing what's called the divine eye

and you can also start developing what's

called the divine

ear the divine eye

what it basically means is you'll be

able to see

beings in other realms

i have students that do that

and they hear

beings in other realms so they can go

visit

one of the heavenly realms and hang out

and talk with the

the davis that are there or brahmanas

that are there

almost everybody has

that ability

as you quiet your mind down and become

more

pure keeping your precepts without

breaking them

this will develop by itself

and i i have some students that told me

they could do that

and i said okay

now i'm halfway around the world

i want you to visit my mother's house

i told her what it was in california

it was in a town called escondido

i said i want you to see the

street that she lives on and i want to

see the ad

if you can see the address and she

directed her mind to be able to do that

and she did it she lived on 8th avenue

and it was 837

was the number of the house

and she saw my my mother standing in the

doorway

in the open door and she told me and i

said what color

clothes did she have on well my mother

that day

had blue clothes and she it was a nice

dress and she was getting ready to go

somewhere

so she said she's wearing blue

so i called up my mother right then

and i ask her what color clothes you

have

on right now and she said blue

i said great thanks mom

and then i hung up and started talking

to this other lady

she was able to see

with the divine eye

and she all she had to do was point her

mind in the direction she wanted it to

go

she would see davis

and because she had the divine ear she

could talk to them

she was chinese and

malay

so she was her first language was

chinese and i said

what language did you talk to the davis

in was it english

no it's chinese

it doesn't matter what language

you you speak to the devas will be able

to communicate with you they can tell

you all kinds of fun

things an

interesting things

you can develop seeing

past lifetimes

but i won't teach you that until you get

to a certain level in your meditation

because you have to have strong

equanimity

we've all done things that are kind of

scary

and not so nice in the past

and if you don't have that equanimity

then it's it's going to be a terrible

experience for

you

so these things are possible through the

meditation

and it all starts with the six

r's

when you talk about the

eightfold path

the first that they talk about is

they call it right view and i don't

like that definition very much so i

call it harmonious

perspective and the harmonious

perspective

is always what occurs right after you

let go and relax

let go of the craving you have a

harmonious perspective

that means that you're not taking

anything personally

you're seeing the impersonal nature of

everything

craving causes you

to have the wrong view

and the wrong view is taking

things personally and the reason you

take things personally be

is because in the past you broke a

precept

and

you feel ashamed or

[Music]

guilty for breaking that precept

and the way you let go of it

is by practicing right view is by

practicing the six

r's

you