From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=LEW43-hFGhc

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

well i thought we'd do something kind of

fun today

because

uh of the over

popularity to one suit being the

official

way to meditate

so i wanted to go over the sati patana

suta

and try to clear up some weird ideas

that have developed over a period of

time

with the sati patana sutta

so i'm gonna i'm gonna read some and

then i'm gonna comment

and see if you agree with what i'm

saying

thus if i hurt let me turn the light on

first

what number is that bente ten

thus if i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living in the kuru

country

in the town of the kurus named kama

sadama

basically that town is named

uh happy action

that's that's kama sadama

there he addressed the monks thus monks

venerable sir they replied

the blessed one said this

monks this is

the direct path

for the purification of beings

i don't like that translation

makes it sound like it's the only path

but it is intertwined in all the other

ways that you practice the meditation

and i'll get to that in a bit

for surmounting sorrow and lamentation

for the disappearance of pain and grief

for the train the attainment

of the true way and i instead of

the true way i change it to a

true way and that gives it more leeway

when you

when you think about it

namely the four foundations of

mindfulness

what are the four

here a monk abides and they use the word

contemplating the body as a body

and that translation i don't really like

too much because that means thinking

about

and this meditation is not about

thinking

it's about observing

so i'll change that word to observing

the body as a body

and there are a lot of translations

of this that

change a couple of words and they

translate it as a body in a body

which is completely confusing

and it puts it more in the realm of

psychology than it does buddhism

which isn't the same thing that

sometimes they intertwine a little bit

but not much

ardently fully aware and mindful

having put away covetousness and grief

for the world

he abides observing

feeling as feelings

now bhikkhu bodhi when he did the

translation he

put an s on the end of feeling

and that implies emotion

emotional feelings and that's not what

the buddha was teaching

so there's there's some

mistakes that are being made

now don't get the idea that

i think bhikkhu bodhi is not a great

translator

he is but we're

all human beings and we all have

our own uh

we all have our own way of thinking

about things

and this one is just a little bit off

not much

so i change that to feeling as feeling

ardent fully aware and mindful

having put away covetousness and grief

for the world

covetousness i like it

grief aversion i don't like it

so we could actually even change those

words if we wanted

he abides observing mind as mind

ardent fully aware and mindful

having put away covetousness and grief

for the world another translation

for covetousness and grief is craving

now isn't that a different kind of way

to look at it having

giving up craving

and that changes your perspective

about what this food

is about

he abides observing mind objects

as mind objects ardent fully aware and

mindful having put away

covetousness and brief for the world

now one of the things that the phenomena

that's been happening is people aren't

getting results

by thinking about the four and thinking

is is the key problem

thinking about the four foundations of

mindful

thinking of mindfulness thinking that

they

can

just take one of the foundations

and make it work

i've heard people talking about

yeah i'm doing caita newpasana

and everybody else around them goes oh

that's really

tough how do you do that with your daily

activities

well it's like you're trying to make

some bread

and you're only using flour and you're

not putting any eggs

or other ingredients

in it to make it a successful loaf of

bread

and then you wonder why it doesn't work

and then you keep trying and trying

because you said

in the sati patana suta it says this

but it's not the whole formula

these are interconnected

the body you have to have a body

there are feelings

but it is pleasant feeling

painful feeling neither painful nor

pleasant

it's not emotional

and mind

you don't just watch mind

until

you are able to go

deeper into the meditation

so it's not as and you still need the

feeling

is still there and when there's contact

body is still there

so the mind objects

now one of the things that's really

amazing

is the uh

hindrances by most people that are

practicing meditation

they treat hindrances like it's some

kind of enemy

and they try to suppress the hindrances

and they try to push them down

and they complain when there is some

kind of a loud noise

that quotes disturbs my meditation

now this is a major problem

if you want to be successful with your

meditation

all of these are part

of being successful

and when you're practicing the four

foundations of mindfulness correctly

you're using them

so that your mind will

not be so susceptible

to hindrances

now again your hearing means say

the same thing over and over again

because it is

so incredibly important

when vipassana came to america

the vipassana teachers thought that uh

keeping the precepts was too close to

the catholic religion where there was a

lot of

rejection fear

and guilty feeling

so they didn't stress the importance of

keeping the precepts

now the precepts are not laws

that you have to follow

but there are suggestions

that when you do follow the precepts

mind will become more clear and you'll

be able to sit

and more quickly get into

your

object of meditation and stay with it

which a lot of people call concentration

and to be honest it is a form of

concentration

but it's not the same

[Music]

as what the buddha taught

so i don't like to use the word

concentration

i like to use the word collectedness

because that's more accurate

towards being successful

with the meditation

now because the the five

hindrances are the first thing that's

talked about

when you're talking about mind objects

it's pretty important

but what is your instruction when a mind

mind gets distracted or

just ignore it or suppress

it push it away stop it from coming up

and that gets you to practice wrong

effort that means you're trying too hard

and an awful lot of people that are

practicing

the other forms of meditation wind up

with

massive headaches and pressure

in their heads

and you go to the teacher and you say

boy i really got this headache

and my mind is so active

and what do they tell you to do oh it'll

go away eventually don't

don't pay attention to it is that

part of full awareness

or are you getting into a different

form of meditation

that some people say is a form of

self-hypnosis

and then you can develop this idea that

you can sit with a quiet mind without

having any disturbance at all

but that's the force of the

concentration

causing that to appear

faster

and it seems to work

because the hindrances don't come up the

force of the concentration

pushes it down

and that is not the path of the buddha

full awareness think of that what is

full awareness supposed to be

suppression something that makes your

mind go

and get real tight

it doesn't lead to the freedom

and it reinforces

the idea of i am that

now what's one of the first things that

you hear when you when you practice

meditation with other people

aneesha dukkha anatta

what is anata that's a big question for

an awful lot of people

it means i'm not there how can i not be

there and be aware of it

who's aware and there's all of these

kind of questions that come up

so it's a real amazing phenomena

that so many people like to take the

idea of the buddha

teaching freedom

and they want that

to let go of that suffering

but they're not willing to try the way

the buddha suggests

so they go off on other paths and they

might call it buddhism

they might even read

some things from

the suttas

but it's really confusing

and it doesn't work very well

now when you come here and you practice

the first day i'm gonna start showing

you

something different i don't care

how long people have been practicing

meditation

i'm showing you something different it's

new

it's exciting and it's old

because this is closer to the original

teaching of the buddha himself

the buddha the first discourse that he

gave was the eightfold path

among other things

and in that eightfold path

is very clear instruction

in how to practice

the way he's showing

now he was showing people that have been

doing meditation for a long time they've

been doing all kinds of different things

they even pushed him away because they

he wouldn't continue on when he saw it

didn't work

when he came back he had to convince

them

that there is a different way

and the way is the eightfold path

but it's a different way it's a middle

way of looking at things

a lot of people think that that's just

surface stuff

but it was actually incredibly deep

because the eightfold path is the middle

way it's a middle way

that eliminates gets rid of

that false belief in a personal

self anitra dukkha anata

now a lot of people say anata a

means no atta is self

and that's as far as they go with the

definition

so i give it a different

definition

anata is the impersonal

way of seeing life

now this gets all confused because

there's an awful lot of people

that they say well you have to be

mindful

for years

literally

uh more than 20 years

my teachers when i ask them what

mindfulness

is uh just be aware

well what in the world is that supposed

to mean

you're supposed to know what that

definition

means and now you have a whole lot of

different definitions and that confuses

everything

when you look at dependent origination

you see

that this is a process of the way

the buddha describes how this

all works this is a process

and it's not a personal process it's not

something that's owned by

me

it's just a scientific

way of looking

at how this

life process works

now let's get back to the definition of

mindfulness

with the understanding i just gave you

this will make complete sense

mindfulness is remembering

to observe how mind's

attention moves from one thing to

another

that's another way of saying it's

a way of remembering

because you have to keep your attention

on your object to meditation pretty well

you have to keep your attention there

to be able to observe

that this is a process

and it's an impersonal process

no because everything is so intertwined

i want you to go back to the sati patana

suta

and look at the instructions in

meditation that the buddha gives for

mindfulness of breathing

but it's not only mindfulness of

breathing

it's every kind of meditation that the

the buddha taught

this is the instruction

now when you get to this

section of the sati patana

this is part of observing the mind

our body as a body

when breathing in long

he understands i breathe it in long

when breathing out long he understands i

breathe out long

while breathing in short he understands

i breathe in

short while breathing out short he

understands i breathe out short

now when you're given

instruction and mindfulness of breathing

does it say that you focus

someplace in your body

does this say you only

pay attention to the breath

and suppress or ignore anything else

is the nose or

the abdomen or the upper lip

is that talked about

is that mentioned in this instruction

no why because it's not there

why did we start teaching differently

from the first set of the instruction

and yes i was taught that way for 20

years

by myriad different meditation

teachers because i was doing mindfulness

of breathing

to the exclusion

of the other

parts of the saudi patana suta

i was supposed to focus on that

and i was supposed to focus so

deeply that i would see the beginning

of the in-breath the middle

of the in-breath

and the going out

of the in-breath then

pause and

then breathing in

so i was supposed to keep my attention

on that

to the exclusion of every every other

part of the sadhi patana suta

and that is why a lot of people are

practicing

one pointed concentration

because they believe that this is the

way that the buddha taught

and they don't investigate

and see what's the rest of the

instruction

they don't investigate that at all

so it's a pretty interesting phenomena

that over the years

the buddhist teaching actually pretty

much disappeared

and as a result a lot of the different

people that wanted to follow the

buddha's path and of

buddhist philosophy they began to change

things around to suit

what they thought was what the buddha

was talking about

and they added weird things into it

because they weren't processing

processing i don't like that word very

much

they weren't experiencing becoming

arahats and they still wanted people to

come and follow what they thought the

buddha was

teaching they developed

this idea of a bodhisattva

what is a bodhisattva vow

a vow taken to become

a future buddha

and then the philosophies got going more

and more

and then it just turned into a thing

where you don't even expect to become

awakened

because you've taken the bodhisattva the

bodhisattva valve stops you

from

experiencing nibana in this lifetime

so all of these things are so much

intertwined

that people have become attached to it

and of course they're going to ignore

any other person that

doesn't agree with what they're doing

that's kind of the nature of

life

and as a result we we

lose this simple instruction

of the meditation

and take on a much more difficult kind

of meditation

it's kind of interesting because

for instance somebody just wrote me a

letter

on the email and they said you know i've

practiced goenka's style

meditation and i'm not putting down

going up by

saying this this is just the fact that

he practiced that

and he had fear every time he sat down

to meditate

and he practiced it for 20 years

because he had such confidence

in a teacher

and it didn't lead to what he

thought it should lead to

and he had this fear for 20 years

and then he began he ran across

some youtubes that i'd give talks on

and he started to see

that he was causing that fear in himself

because he was taking it personally

and now he doesn't have fear

and he's so thankful

that's how we get misguided in doing a

lot of the

different things because we have

confidence in them

i think it's kind of a personality

uh attachment

that we get to other teachers well

seems that he's right he's saying a lot

of the words that i agree with so he

must be right

now when you come and teach you'll hear

me say i don't want you to believe a

word i say

i want you to experience

what i'm talking about and judge for

yourself

whether it's the correct path or not

you have to take that responsibility for

yourself

and if you want to add this or that

from some other meditation because it

seemed to work

and and your practice isn't going very

well

then look at that and tell yourself

well you know i've been trying this

and it didn't work maybe

if i try something else and completely

follow that suggestion

that you're going to be successful

i'm not a proselytizer i'm not trying to

get you to do something

that you don't want to do for yourself

you are your own teacher

and you're teaching yourself by direct

practice

all i'm asking you to do

is investigate a new way

completely

like taking all of the sati patana sutra

and using them instead

of just taking part and then doing

something else with it

just see for yourself

i'm not here to criticize another

person's way

are there advantages to doing the

meditation the way you do

some of them some of them they can be

not such good advantages

it's up to you what you're doing

so please don't criticize

me and say that i'm against this other

person

i'm not

i mean i've even gone so far as to be in

goenka's house in india and this is

after he died

and talked with his brother

about meditation

and it was very cordial

we didn't argue we didn't fight we

didn't say

this way is the way and that way is

supposed to be the way

and and we we got along

famously because we were

able to listen to each other

and then was willing to change

a little bit and see if it helped

and now they're starting to teach goinka

in a different way that doesn't

push as hard doesn't need as much

energy and they're starting to see

more and more that

they are having more joy come up into

their life

they're not following exactly these

instructions

but they did incorporate

the relaxed step which is

letting go of

craving

so let's get back to

the actual instructions

now the key word

that is pretty much ignored

with you understand when you take a long

breath and when you take a short breath

the word that's

pretty much un misunderstood

is the word misunderstand

it doesn't say focus it says you know

when you're breathing

and you don't have to focus any place in

your body you know when you take a

breath

you know when it's long you know when

it's short

that's all that's all it means

you don't have to add any other

instruction to that

it means pay attention so you

understand when you're breathing and how

your breathing is short

or subtle or

gross and big you know

the next part is the actual instruction

it's only two sentences

i sh he trains thus

i shall breathe in experiencing the

whole body of

breath now

the of breath

is not in the actual

suta

it's the whole body

you know what's happening in your body

you know when you're sitting and you get

a pain you know it's there

you you're practicing

this part of the meditation

now the thing that is important

to understand is

the buddha gave us the perfect

instruction

in how to handle

different things that happen in the body

and that is to use the six r's

now i say the six r's

because that's an easier way to

understand

what right effort actually is

right effort is four parts you can read

that in a lot of different

books and such

but what to do with them is not in those

books

because they say suppress push away

stop

fight with or try to just leave it there

by

itself

right effort is first

recognizing

when your mind is not on your object of

meditation

second

release

that distraction what does that mean

that means as soon as you see

that your mind is pulled away from

that

let it be there by itself

don't get involved in thinking about

what that distraction is

that just means that it's going to keep

coming back and it's going to get bigger

and more intense

as you put your attention on it

as you feed it with

your attention

so you don't make a big deal out of any

kind of distraction

you allow it to be there by itself

and don't keep your attention on it

anymore

if you don't feed it with your

distraction

it's going to go away by itself

next you relax

now what is a distraction where did the

distraction come from

the distraction came from

past unwholesome

activity

in other words you broke a precept

now you see why i was talking about

precepts earlier now you see

what's the cause of every distraction

well what happens when you break a

precept

you have a tiny little voice in your

mind that says i shouldn't have done

that

and you feel guilty so

every distraction is an old

feeling of guilt

that you identified with that you took

personally

i shouldn't have done that

now we've all broken precepts we've all

broken

all of the precepts at some point or

another in some lifetime or other

we don't have to know what the precept

is that we broke

what we need to do

[Music]

is recognize

that it's there let it be there by

itself

and relax relax

the tension and tightness in your head

in your mind

now a lot of you have heard me talk

about

the meninges and how that's just a bag

that goes over the brain

every time you have a hindrance arise

your brain expands and causes

subtle tension and tightness in your

head

in your mind and actually

it extends to the meninges that goes

around your spine

so we're talking about the whole body

how you relax

how do you relax you

let it be there by itself without

keeping your attention on it

excuse me

now that's half

of right effort what's the other part

or parts

bringing up something wholesome

now let me back up a little bit when you

relax that tension and tightness you'll

notice in your mind

you don't have any thoughts you don't

have any distractions

your mind is alert

without a lot of effort

and your mind is pure because you have

let go

of that false belief in a personal

self you have let go of craving

pretty amazing

so when you put a smile

into your practice

you're doing a couple of things at the

same time that you don't really notice

that much

but after a period of time you do notice

it

the more you smile and i'm talking about

all the time smile i'm not talking about

just

sitting but the more

my

the better your mindfulness becomes the

better your

observation power becomes

the easier it is to recognize

when your mind starts to get tight

and you recognize it more easily

and you use the six ours

and you recognize that your mind's

starting to get tight

and you allow it to be there and relax

so smiling is a major

part of the practice that's not talked

about

too much in in the buddhist

texts but it is talked about

and it is implied in the third

noble truth the cessation of suffering

what's the opposite expression

of suffering what's the opposite of that

smiling being happy

now smiling is kind of misunderstood i

know that there are some meditation

teachers that they've heard about

smiling enough they'll tell you

okay smile then i'll give that in the

first day of the instruction and not

talk about it again

and they also will talk about

more about relaxing

but they'll just tell you that one time

and then that you're

on it for the rest of the meditation

they don't

emphasize it near enough

to be successful

but you hear me talk about a lot because

i think it's that

important and practicing right effort

every time you smile

every time you use the six r's

you are practicing the entire eightfold

path

at that time

so you're on the right path

kind of amazing to think how how

intertwined

everything really is and

how you can do so much

in such such a simple way

i know a lot of people that practice

one point of concentration or they don't

like to call it that

whatever kind of concentration that they

don't have a relaxed step in

and they will defend it

this is the right way when they start to

practice

just out of curiosity to see if it works

or not

and their mindfulness is strong enough

they're gonna see every time they relax

there's pressure that's being let go of

that they didn't see before

and they will start to

be more successful with the meditation

now they've been practicing a form of

mindfulness

that's not what the buddha taught but

it's a form of mindfulness

and their mindfulness is strong enough

to be able to recognize

oh this is different this is nice

i like it

now one of the things that's been going

around with so many

teachers is they like to talk

more about suffering than how to get rid

of the suffering

and that's that's a pretty remarkable

thing

and a lot of people walk around saying

buddhism is some form of pessimism

and that's the opposite what it's what's

really happening

but because an awful lot of people

the monks and that sort of thing english

is their second language

they don't understand the subtleties of

there is suffering in life and they

don't

understand the difference between that

and all life is suffering

which is pretty big

my whole career as a monk has been

dedicated

to the idea that

the meditation is supposed to be fun

it's okay to laugh

i've had students that are

really gifted artists in one form

or another quit

because they thought buddhism was more

important

and when i get a hold of them like why

do you

why are you quitting why are you not

doing more of your artwork why aren't

you being more creative

well all life is suffering and i'm

supposed to suffer so i really do a good

job of that

i have a friend that quit he had a

master's in music

and he quit his music and he suffered a

lot because of it and felt guilty any

time he picked up his instruments to

play it

when i started talking to him i

convinced him that that was the wrong

idea

and then he started to get it

especially when i got him to start

practicing the six

hours i hadn't seen him for 20 years

we had a connection that was remarkable

but he got this

idea that he was supposed to suffer so

he was going to do the best he could at

it

and he did not have a happy life

he had moments of happiness of course

everybody does

but it's just the misunders

misunderstanding of the

translation so when i convinced him

he was supposed to uh

have joy and head of joy while he was

playing his instrument

right after that he practiced it he had

a lot more joy in his life

and he got into a con

orchestra

playing professionally

and he had pushed that away because he

wanted to get off the wheel of samsara

just because he followed

what the teacher said to do not what the

buddha said to do

now i hear comments about

this is vimala ramsey's way

of doing things

no it's not my way

i'm only a guide you're your own teacher

you learn how to teach yourself from

direct experience and

then observe whether it's working

or not

and when it does you get excited

and you go okay let's do that some more

this is nice this

is fun and this

is the way it's supposed to be

it's not my way

what i get to do is observe your

successes

and that makes me ecstatically happy

but you're taking the responsibility to

change

you want to change because

you're suffering

and you're willing to change to let go

of those old habits that

have a tendency to pull you down have a

tendency to make you depressed have a

tendency to make you fearful

filled with anxiety

this man that wrote and this was just a

couple days ago

he said for 20 years i have had panic

attacks

20 years of panic attacks being afraid

of something

whatever it was and now

after a couple of years of practicing

this not coming to the center

he wouldn't take that long

but he did it on its own and he has

no panic attacks arising anymore

how sweet is that

and that gets my juices going

because that's just an affirmation

that what he is doing

is correct and what the buddha

taught really does work

can't get any better than that

it's exciting

to see people that have

been so hard on their self for so many

years

and criticize their self that they

really hate themselves

and they get caught in the psychological

stuff about the way you overcome it is

just by

reliving it over and over and over and

over again

for years and then you finally won't

have any reaction to it

that's psychology

but when you follow the buddha and his

four noble truths and four foundations

of mindfulness

your progress is fast

you don't have to suffer for years and

years and years

you learn by having a

light mind your

light mind is alert

your light mind is pure

and the more you

practice it the better you get at it

until it becomes a habit

and what happens after that

you start developing more and more

equanimity in your mind you more more

balance

you don't have to do the psychological

things like beating on a pillow to get

rid of your anger which really makes

your anger bigger and more intense

doesn't make it go away

but you feel some relief when you

finally let it go

in your mind and then you go well that

seemed to work

but how long does it work until the next

situation that anger comes up

now you haven't been mindful of it you

haven't been aware of it

you've let your mind dictate

how to control what you're doing while

you're doing it

and quite often that leads to a state

of remorse and sadness

and problems for yourself

well you don't need to have years of

sadness or

fear or anxiety to overcome it

that's not why you're here somebody just

asked me

well i'm alive but why why am i here

and i told him that the reason you're

here is to learn

and to be happy

yeah but there's so much bad stuff

happening

in the world well that's his world

there's bad stuff happening yes

but it doesn't have to affect you in a

negative way

you can have balance without getting

caught

in what the dependent origination

calls bhava

now i give it a different definition

than other people

i've talked to a lot of very very

advanced monks about this and they agree

with me that it is a better definition

than existence what is that supposed to

mean

or becoming what is that supposed to

mean

i call it habitual

emotional tendency sometimes i throw

emotional in there sometimes i don't

but it's your habitual tendency that's

what you get caught

with when you try to think

you're feeling and try to control your

feeling with your thoughts

it don't work

but you get attached to doing it in the

same way over and over and over again

and then you run to a medical doctor and

said

please give me some pills so i won't be

depressed

and they give you pills and it dulls you

out so you walk around like a zombie and

you're

not so depressed but you're not so

happy either

i get people complaining to me

because they say it's harder to get rid

of this stuff than what you're saying

but it isn't really not if you're

sincere in change

now there are some people that come and

they don't want to change

and if they're not willing to change

their perspective

and way of doing things

if they want to keep to the old way of

doing things

then why come to me

go find another teacher and i've told

some people that

because they weren't willing to change

they weren't willing to have a more

uplifted mind because they were

so attached and thought they were doing

it the right way

okay i have to have enough compassion to

for them to allow them

to go and continue suffering

i can't take somebody's suffering away

i can allow them the space to have their

suffering

and i can love them completely

not with any heavy judgments in my mind

just love them because they're there

that's what true compassion is

not trying to take pain away from

someone

else if you try to take pain away from

someone else

you're going to make yourself suffer

and when you're suffering how can you

help them to overcome theirs

you're not being a very good example

right

so

learn to change

accept the fact that you're gonna change

and you're gonna get into

some unusual situations that you've

never

experienced before because your mind is

gonna test you in all kinds of ways

to see whether you have learned that or

not and it

always comes down to

keeping your precepts without breaking

them

for some people to heal themselves

is a very frightening experience

because it's new ground that they've

never walked on

before and maybe they'll sink into it

who knows maybe they'll harm themselves

but that's just mind talking

suit the number 35 the

sachika suta talks about

the five aggregates

and the buddha named each aggregate and

said

can you control that

is that you is that yours

of course the answer is no you can't

control this stuff

that proves in itself that this is part

of a process

it's not a personal process

well if it's not a personal process

who benefits from that

well you do and everybody else around

you

because you have given up your old ways

of handling

your habitual tendencies

then i don't want you to believe me

i have my own stuff

to take care of

and i'm not perfect at it if i was i

would be an arahat and i promise you i

am

not

wish i was but that wish gets in the way

of everything

so

life is here so you can learn

there was a movie called lucy

and morgan freeman was talking about

what's the purpose of life and he came

up with the idea

cells talk to each other

and one cell teaches a new way of doing

something

and it talks to something else so from

that

he said life is about

learning and

showing others

a different way a way to exist

that has less suffering in it

amazing movie it really is good

highly recommended

why because it has that truth in it it

is a dhamma

movie

and it has bizarre stuff in it

but it's just always coming back to that

what's the purpose of life

the purpose of life is to continue on

and teach each other

now how do you teach each other a lot of

people think it's by

talking and it's not

it's by example

it's by i used to have this emotional

upset

and got very angry and now the same kind

of situation comes up

and people see that you're not

reacting in the same way and then

they're they want to communicate with

you and

what's different how did you do that

but you always lead by example

and the more happy you become

the more you spread that to other people

and i do understand that there's a lot

of political nonsense that's going out

and a lot of trying to manipulate people

into their mental states so that they

stay angry so that things can get put

over on them

well why be attached to some political

view

when you can show others

the way to live

now david just got another

i bought another book on the cosmology

of buddhism and where it came from and

how all of these things these ideas

started to manifest

and some of it is very accurate some of

it

it causes questions to arise

but and you can believe it or not

but there were times when

the earth was fairly young

and devas used to come down and live on

the earth

because it was such a pleasant pace

and after a period of time

there's changes that started happening

and they started thinking

about telling a lie

now before that this was like a perfect

place to live

everything was in the right proportion

and you had

food and you didn't have to pay for the

food all you had to do was pick it up

off the ground

and eat it and

then they started getting this

idea that they were going to tell a lie

and one of the davis decided he was

going to take responsibility for that

now this

is when their lifespan was very long

like a hundred thousand years you can

believe that or not i don't really care

it's just the example that i'm giving

and when they lied their lifespan went

down to

ten thousand years

and then they started breaking

uh sexual precepts and devas were very

much appalled at that and they wouldn't

come down to this earth anymore

and after that there seemed to be a need

for

government

and the lifespan gets shorter and

shorter because of that

because there was a lot more hatred

one one group of people wanted to

own what another group of people owned

and they went in and stole it and and

killed people well that shortens a

lifespan

so now the lifespan is not very long

because of not following precepts

but when you're an example of following

precepts

you're helping other people to live

longer and be more happy

and that's how you teach

just like teaching oneself from another

or to another

oh you can believe that or not

i don't care but it does seem to make

sense

and it gives you an idea of

how historical things come to pass

and how they change because of the

historical things

and how that's intertwined with

your precepts

so i didn't even

get through the first part of the sati

padana

well let's let's go to the last sentence

of this

because this to me is the most important

part

that has been ignored

by people that are teaching meditation

he teaches and he trains thus

i shall breathe in tranquilizing

the bodily formation

i shall breathe out tranquilizing

the bodily formation

and this is important

now you can take the breath and say no i

don't want to

do it with the breath i can do this with

loving kindness

i shall stay on my object of meditation

and relax

every time there's a distraction i'm

going to use the six r's

these are the same instructions

with a little twist to them

but you know that the buddha taught

loving kindness meditation a lot more

than he taught mindfulness and breathing

i did mindfulness of breathing because

they wanted to follow

exactly what the buddha was practicing

but the buddha came out and said that

your

progress in meditation is much faster

with loving kindness meditation than it

is any other kind of meditation

sure i can teach other kinds of

meditation i know them intimately i've

practiced them a lot i know what happens

when and i know what's important and

what is not

but if you want to just do do

mindfulness of breathing you're not

going to have

as much personality development

why when you're practicing loving

kindness you practice it all the time

and that means with your daily activity

so you practice it more

and the more you practice it

the more of a habit it becomes

the more personality change there is

and the more equanimity you have

when you're practicing mindfulness of

breathing and you're doing your daily

activities what are you supposed to do

oh i i have this emotional state

stop what everybody's doing i have to

take a breath

and get mindful

it doesn't work as well that's why the

progress is

not as fast

i have students and they can verify

this that their progress in the

meditation was

faster in 10 days than it was

years of mindfulness of breathing

what do you want to do it's up to you

i don't like teaching mindfulness of

breathing so much

just because it takes so long for

progress to occur

and the personality development

is different than the loving kindness

loving-kindness is a bit softer it has

more compassion in it

it helps you to smile more easily

although i do

insist that people smile when they're

doing

mindfulness of breathing which is a new

concept in the world

it just doesn't work as fast

the end results can be the same

it is up to you i have had some

people come they insist on continuing on

with the mindfulness of breathing fine

until they start having and then they

start having insights that they've never

had before

into how this process worked

and then they want to switch over to

loving kindness

and that's great because they already

have a deep understanding of how it

works it's just a little

tweak in the in the progress

over to loving kindness

so it's your choice

the end result of any kind of meditation

that the buddha taught

is that you

have let go of suffering and understand

how this process works

your life will become more content

and at ease

and basically more fun

a lot more laughing

and it's not laughing at things it's

laughing

with things

just seeing some butterflies fly around

can make me

grin and laugh

look at what they're doing isn't that

great

and we have animals around here

wild and tame

but they always bring joy when i see

them

and if they're not around for a while i

miss them

is that an attachment no it's just a

wish for their happiness it's compassion

for them

so again i've talked for a long time

and i uh feel like i've

gone on to belong

so please

do you have any questions

don't be shy thank you

hello sorry tomorrow you go yeah no i

just want to

yeah i just want to say to bonte i am

one of the

example that you have just mentioned and

talked about

like i'm so grateful in the past few

months that what i've been

through from a different like uh toy

path that i have been trying to

understand what's going on all along

until i was like by whatever reason

i was got to uh to have you on youtube

that i have such a beautiful like um

i don't know it's maybe you're you're

saying that intuition that i

know that this is the right way i i i

dare to uh

to continue and trial and er it makes a

difference for me

just so much like that you have to have

been just

telling everyone and it is my personal

very deep-hearted experience that i have

been through in the fast pass

four months in meditation and past

diamonds

in listening to your talks it has made

such a

deep change that i have find so

beautiful and it is

all about like what you are talking

about so

i am so grateful i am so hardly grateful

and i know that i have friends that can

see the change

so it has been a life-changing thing it

is

very it is i don't know what to express

but i just want to let you know

this thank you thank you yeah

thank you very much monkey

it is i don't know how to express

but i i i in your face

the change yes

when i when i first saw you

you were sad a lot of frowning

and young you had deep lines in your

face and now they're gone

isn't that you become more beautiful

a relief yeah

thank you

thank you bonsai for your talk you're

welcome

i i wanted to uh

just your opinion on on this view so

i'm imagining if someone is new to twin

and they are radiating loving kindness

to their spiritual friend

and they want to know how does this

apply to the four foundations of

mindfulness

and i imagine saying something like this

uh

well you observe the body because you

observe

tensions and you relax using the six

stars in the body

um as far as feelings you will notice

you know pleasant

unpleasant you know or neither pleasant

or unpleasant feelings

in your body or to whatever comes up in

your mind

and you observe mind objects when you

watch the hinges

which are your teachers right but when

it comes to observing mind

you almost have to wait until you get to

neither perception

nor neither not perception or perception

or how do they observe mind at an early

stage

it says in

which is mindfulness of mind

[Music]

that you see

all of the jhanas

all of the dramas

okay it doesn't it it says it

in the commentary so you can understand

that

it is talking about dramas everything in

the sati patana suta

is talking about dramas

and that's very much misunderstood and a

lot of people they think it's about

uh this kind of concentration or that

kind of

concentration sometimes they say well

it's

moment-to-moment concentration

and that's why i don't like the word

because it's so misunderstood

it misrepresented what the buddha was

talking about

and there's no moment-to-moment

awareness

in the suttas that is in commentary

it doesn't match up

with the actual sutra themselves

so to observe mind one would have to be

in a genre

right okay so someone who's just

starting twin

you know week one uh well

not even week one let's assume they

haven't experienced china yet then we

would say just

keep practicing and then you'll observe

mind as mind

it'll happen on its own i wouldn't talk

to them like that they wouldn't

understand it

i talk in more simple terms

um while you're sitting do you

experience

joy

when the joy fades away are you able to

stay with your object of meditation a

little bit more easily

more at ease and

uh over a period of time it starts to

last a little bit longer

now that's getting into jhana but i'm

not going to tell them that

you're getting into jhana because

there's too many ideas that aren't

understood

see it's more for the the guide

what is in each jhana

so i can understand where you are

and i can be able to talk to you in a

language that you're going to be able to

understand

because you've had the experience

and that's the advantage

of being with a guide

and talking with them every day

a lot of people like i know

at ims in in berry massachusetts

they only have an interview every other

day

but it's not always with the same

teacher

and it gets confusing and as a result

the progress

isn't as great as it could be although

there

is some people that are

successful with the way they're teaching

i'm not criticizing them i'm just

showing you an example

of the importance of a teacher being

able to see

you every day and get to know

you a bit so they can judge

whether you're staying on the path

correctly or not

that's all my job is

is to see whether you're staying on the

path if you start

going away from that a bit

then i'm gonna ask you questions so you

can see

that that's what you're doing and you

can get back on the path

yourself

okay okay thank you thank you dante

oh you're very welcome hi

comment hello debra hi hi hello

how are you um well i've got a bit of a

migraine today so i'm off and on here

but i'm pretty good but i wanted to

share with you after healing

the other person um that

i've been doing forgiveness meditation

with great dedication

and last monday i felt a real

shift of letting go

and i guess i complete forgiveness of

anybody and where they are

and the very next day the person who

i've had the most problem with phone me

and

and apologized and i thought

it's just like monty said

i didn't do it intending to get that i

and that's what i wanted to be really

aware i wasn't doing it for an outcome

but i just thought she's like he said i

could have saved myself a lot of trouble

here

i i have a question for you are you

forgiving that headache

not yet but i will okay

yeah i i don't know i don't usually get

headaches

yeah so i in fact very rarely

so but when you forgive it then some of

the aversion to that pain

stops bothering you so it lightens up

and

eventually it'll fade away i hope yeah

i think there's a lot of tension you

know i mean this has been a family thing

that's been going on for seven years

seven years and

to have that shift was just so

i mean it's just i just feel like crying

i just

excellent i just can't believe it i

didn't think it would happen in this

life

and um isn't it fun

yeah it's amazing

you so much

you're so welcome and thank you for

doing it

well it's the only thing that gave me a

sense of a controller

power or you know to just um i thought

to

bring me into and huge equanimity

you know this week just just like

whatever is there

being themselves and i just have to let

them be and just be

as you said an example of stability and

love so

you're on the right path i know

wonderful thanks

i should mention also one more thing

okay my husband said to me

the other day it's just unbelievable

you're just

you're just amazing you've been just

like what

yeah the way you respond all the time

it's just amazing

so that's helping him to change

too yeah

oh thank you you're doing all the work

you're taking credit but you're doing

the work for well the guidance is very

helpful it's like you said i mean i was

trying to follow some other practices

and they just

it just wasn't creating the energetic

change that and it is an energy

between people because we're all in this

it's just phenomenal you think

my energy changed and that changed there

like

how was i hanging on to them and keeping

them down

it's phenomenal attachments are

very strange things yeah

thank you thank you

i appreciate you very much

thanks

uh panty uh just uh carrying on

from that question about forgiveness

meditation

so i just want to quickly uh talk about

my my experience with forgiveness

meditation

with which i still need some some

guidance from you

um so i have been in some situations in

which

people have behaved in a rather

insulting

fashion to me and um so i think i've

evolved a little bit

from uh previously when i would just try

to uh you know to

just respond in the same way and try to

throw it back at them

uh to now where i realize in my moments

of clarity that

uh that is kind of meaningless um

and um i'm i'm only responding to the

emotions that

that evokes in me not to what they are

saying right

um the the problem is uh

when i'm trying to do forgiveness

meditation

um i guess despite the fact that i have

this realization i

still don't really feel like i want to

i mean i i i don't know if i want to

forgive that person

and it's like i need to have loving

kindness in order to have forgiveness

and i need to have forgiveness in order

to have

so i don't really know and i feel like

like i'm a bit stopped here

your problem is you caught by your

attachment

to wanting to get even

and some revenge in that sort of thing

and it has to be sincere

you have to sincerely want to forgive

somebody

or you're going to be caught with

not wanting

your mind is going to play all kinds of

tricks on you

to distract you away from forgiving

don't get caught up in the stories

only stay with the forgiving

and the relaxed step after

you forgave okay

so you have a distraction you're

thinking about this

or that person and what they said and

you start to get involved

with i don't like what they said and all

of that

forgive yourself for doing that forgive

them

and then relax and come back

and forgive them again

you wear them down that way you wear

down the

uh dissatisfaction

the aversion

the not liking

and you have to ask yourself who doesn't

like

oh it's me well it's me

because i have a hindrance in my mind

and i'm identifying with that

and causing myself a lot of pain

you're doing it to yourself but you're

looking to blame somebody else for your

pain

it takes patience to overcome some of

these kind of problems

because

but now you bring different awareness

that is accepting

of what it is

so you're more alive

when you accept and you're more

relieved when you

finally your mind will say

i really do forgive that person i don't

have any hard feeling toward them

and that will come but you need to have

patience

okay okay uh thank you one day uh just

on on a lighter uh note i uh in the

um youtube video in uh david's youtube

video for

forgiveness meditation he tells the

listeners not to

go beyond the first channel and in this

presentation

and that's not a problem for me because

i've never run beyond the first channel

so it's not a problem okay

for some people they've been doing it

for a while and their mind

wants to go to the the next level but

you need to be able to verbalize

while you're in the first jhana

and that's that's fun forgiveness can i

just

ask one more uh question

um so i'm just curious uh about

uh about this uh so i um

i know that uh you know among humans the

majority are neither

uh you know entirely virtuous nor

entirely

um you know sinful uh and they're

uh they're generally a combination of

both and

um so they they uh developed a perpetual

tendencies that are

uh you know human-like because that's

the form that they lived in in a

particular

existence so um if those

uh i guess my question is what is the

normal

expectation for for an average human

being in terms of what

uh form uh that person will take uh in

in the next um existence

um

[Music]

well that's hard to say because it

depends on their actions for their whole

life

and what they got attached to and

what kind of precepts they broke and how

much

that becomes difficult

to uh

to say but the buddha said there

are five different visions that happen

right before you die

i spent a year with people that were

dying in a nursing home

every about every week there was

somebody

that was there that was dying

and i would spend time with them if they

didn't object

and talk to them about the vision

sometimes

sometimes they would see a

real scary

fire realms and

ice realms and things like that

sometimes they would see a bee

kind of like a a bigfoot you know what a

bigfoot is

they they say it's like an a a gorilla

but

stands more than seven or eight feet

high

and it's covered with hair just like a

gorilla is

and they start dragging them off and

they get into their

oh they're their fears and anxieties and

that sort of thing

and they're going to be reborn in that

realm

where it's not a pleasant realm to be in

and there's going to be a lot of things

that are going to happening to

them limbs cut off every day because

they'll grow back

and that this is not pleasant

there is the animal realm

and you can have visions of animals and

you will be reborn as an animal

there is human realms where

you are visited by

past relatives that have already died

and you communicate with them

and talk to them i've been around quite

a few people that

they're talking and i said who are you

talking to

well i'm talking my relative right over

there

okay

that means that they're going to be

reborn as a human being

and there are some people that have

lived

uplifted lives that doesn't mean they

haven't broken precepts in

in the past they did but they're not as

a big a problem and there are ways that

people

can overcome

some wrongdoing

excuse me

and they're going to be reborn in a

heavenly realm and they'll have visions

of some heavenly beings coming down in a

chariot and picking them up

and they get exceedingly happy and they

whisk off to one of the

heavenly realms

now i've spent time with people that

have had all of those different kinds of

things and what i tried to do

because they were christian i would read

from the bible

and i found out in the bible that there

are the precepts the buddhist precepts

so i would get them to recite the

precepts

and that would uplift their mind it's

such a wholesome thing to do

that they would reborn in a high realm

and i tried to do that but some people

they just

they didn't like it they wouldn't do it

and or they would forget to do it even

while i

was reciting it

and they would be reborn in the lower

realm

so that's the only kind of answer that i

can really give you

and it's to me it's real but don't

believe me

be around people that die and see for

yourself

see whether it's like that uh which

one's the most

uh likely or the biggest group

there's no most likely

it's a pretty small group that gets

reborn in the heavenly realm i'll tell

you that much

because of ignorance because they don't

know

and they might be reborn in an animal

realm

and be around in different

animals as they kill each other and they

cause more

unwholesome karma because of that and

that keeps them there

and they might be around for

the thousands and hundreds of thousands

of years

in an animal realm before they wake up

enough to be reborn

back into a higher realm

so

there's a lot more it's a lot more

crowded in uh

the deva locas are in in abram

in the hell realms in the asura realms

the

the hairy black beast realms

then there is uh

in devaloka

which brings me to a joke that i've told

before i'm turning into braum

there was a guy that died and he had he

had

kind of equal good and bad qualities

and he meets his guide around there and

the

guide says well what realm do you want

to be reborn in

and he said i i don't know

let's go visit him

so he goes to a heavenly realm

and everything is really beautiful

and people are flying around and

dancing and partying and having fun

and then he takes him down to one of the

hell realms

and it's all black and hard to see

and he shows him

this room and it's filled with excrement

and there's a bunch of people in there

and they are whispering something to

each other

and then he's the

guy that's just died

is asked which realm do you want to go

through

you want to go to the heavenly realm and

party and have fun or you want to go

down to this other realm

and the guy's curiosity got real strong

and he wanted to find out what these

people

were whispering

and he decided that going into this room

that really

smelled bad and it was hard to breathe

then it was filled with excrement

but he wanted to find out what they were

saying to each other

so he said i'm going to go into this

room

and he got into the room and he got

close to somebody

and they were whispering to him

[Music]

don't make waves

so that's that's the end of the joke

don't make waves

he gave up a heavenly realm to find out

what that does

so there's a lot of different kinds of

heavenly realms if you want to find out

more about that

write to david he's our

hell realm expert he's got a warp sense

of humor

[Laughter]

and that's not a bad thing

but there there's a hell realm that is

like a big

metal pot

that's filled with molten lead

and this guy when he was

uh living his human life

he was having sexual activity with a lot

of

women that were already married and

caused a lot of problems for a lot of

people

and he was reborn in this hell realm

with that molten pot

and he sank down to the bottom and it

took

50 000 years

to go down to the bottom and then he

would head

back up and it took him 50 000 years to

get up to the top

and he got to the top and he had enough

time to utter

one syllable of some word

and then he started back down again

now thinking about having your entire

body

uh in molten molten lead

that's got to be pretty painful

so he suffered for a long time

and again you can believe these things

or not it's up to you

i'm not trying to scare you with these

kind of things

but it can be an incentive

that you do best when you keep the

precepts without breaking them

okay thank you okay

anybody else

hello hi

how are you today you're really loud

right now

can you hear me okay yeah it is this

yeah i can understand you more more

clearly now

okay great how are you today i'm

pretty good how are you great happy

spring

grant i was outside earlier and there's

lots of people

kind of enjoying the spring weather and

you know happy and smiling so it's very

nice

yeah it's good weather today it's

beautiful

well i have two questions oh well i'll

try to keep my voice down

i have two questions um the first one is

a

practical question so i'm planning on

doing a retreat at amasuka this year

[Music]

and you know in the past i've had um

i've had lyme disease a few times

from ticks um so i'm really curious how

you sort of approach ticks and how you

deal with them there and like

how you do tick safety

what's your approach we give the animals

these pills

that is a repellent for ticks and fleas

so they don't bother them so much

and we try to keep you on the paths

walking paths not going into the forest

because

that's where the ticks and trees and

fleas are

and we give you insect repellent

that's the best we can do

we haven't found another kind of

mystical magical pill that you can take

and

ticks won't won't bother you like the

animals

that's great but you're supposed to

spend your time

mostly sick sitting anyway so you'll be

in

inside and you won't be

troubled by the the ticks and we don't

allow the animals

inside the meditation halls so they're

not gonna the ticks aren't gonna come in

but we do have another another beastie

that

is uh kind of troublesome and that is

a uh wasp

and they sometimes do come in but we

have

catchers that we don't kill them we can

catch them

and let them go outside

because that's where they want to be in

the first place

okay thank you bronte

my my second question um last week i was

asking you about intuition

and um you had a reference to suta where

the

the buddha before his awakening was um

asking his intuition and i think you

mentioned suta 127

but when i look that one up it's the

[Music]

yeah yeah

oh okay um

maybe the version that i had but i was

reading in the buddha

isn't that actually didn't seem to be in

that suit

at all the buddha isn't the mori santa

is

okay well i'll take another look at it

okay try to get one of the later

editions

okay as i remember i've gone through all

of the additions

and they that particular

suta is still the same the bodhisattva

is there and he's

recognized as a bodhisattva and the

buddha

is there because the buddha went to

visit

anuruda and

the other monks

and then they started talking to him

about the meditation

and how it didn't work for them and they

didn't know what the reason

was so the buddha told them about

intuition and how it works because

he gave the example of it working

anything else thank you okay uh no that

is it

yeah thank you okay

anyone else

then let's share some merit

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've thus

acquired for the acquisition of all

kinds of happiness

many beings inhabiting space and earth

devas and nagas of mighty power share

this merit of ours may they long

protect the buddha's dispensation

well i wish you all

a happy week with lots of smiles

and clarity of

mind

[Music]

goodbye

[Music]

you

well i thought we'd do something kind of

fun today

because

uh of the over

popularity to one suit being the

official

way to meditate

so i wanted to go over the sati patana

suta

and try to clear up some weird ideas

that have developed over a period of

time

with the sati patana sutta

so i'm gonna i'm gonna read some and

then i'm gonna comment

and see if you agree with what i'm

saying

thus if i hurt let me turn the light on

first

what number is that bente ten

thus if i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living in the kuru

country

in the town of the kurus named kama

sadama

basically that town is named

uh happy action

that's that's kama sadama

there he addressed the monks thus monks

venerable sir they replied

the blessed one said this

monks this is

the direct path

for the purification of beings

i don't like that translation

makes it sound like it's the only path

but it is intertwined in all the other

ways that you practice the meditation

and i'll get to that in a bit

for surmounting sorrow and lamentation

for the disappearance of pain and grief

for the train the attainment

of the true way and i instead of

the true way i change it to a

true way and that gives it more leeway

when you

when you think about it

namely the four foundations of

mindfulness

what are the four

here a monk abides and they use the word

contemplating the body as a body

and that translation i don't really like

too much because that means thinking

about

and this meditation is not about

thinking

it's about observing

so i'll change that word to observing

the body as a body

and there are a lot of translations

of this that

change a couple of words and they

translate it as a body in a body

which is completely confusing

and it puts it more in the realm of

psychology than it does buddhism

which isn't the same thing that

sometimes they intertwine a little bit

but not much

ardently fully aware and mindful

having put away covetousness and grief

for the world

he abides observing

feeling as feelings

now bhikkhu bodhi when he did the

translation he

put an s on the end of feeling

and that implies emotion

emotional feelings and that's not what

the buddha was teaching

so there's there's some

mistakes that are being made

now don't get the idea that

i think bhikkhu bodhi is not a great

translator

he is but we're

all human beings and we all have

our own uh

we all have our own way of thinking

about things

and this one is just a little bit off

not much

so i change that to feeling as feeling

ardent fully aware and mindful

having put away covetousness and grief

for the world

covetousness i like it

grief aversion i don't like it

so we could actually even change those

words if we wanted

he abides observing mind as mind

ardent fully aware and mindful

having put away covetousness and grief

for the world another translation

for covetousness and grief is craving

now isn't that a different kind of way

to look at it having

giving up craving

and that changes your perspective

about what this food

is about

he abides observing mind objects

as mind objects ardent fully aware and

mindful having put away

covetousness and brief for the world

now one of the things that the phenomena

that's been happening is people aren't

getting results

by thinking about the four and thinking

is is the key problem

thinking about the four foundations of

mindful

thinking of mindfulness thinking that

they

can

just take one of the foundations

and make it work

i've heard people talking about

yeah i'm doing caita newpasana

and everybody else around them goes oh

that's really

tough how do you do that with your daily

activities

well it's like you're trying to make

some bread

and you're only using flour and you're

not putting any eggs

or other ingredients

in it to make it a successful loaf of

bread

and then you wonder why it doesn't work

and then you keep trying and trying

because you said

in the sati patana suta it says this

but it's not the whole formula

these are interconnected

the body you have to have a body

there are feelings

but it is pleasant feeling

painful feeling neither painful nor

pleasant

it's not emotional

and mind

you don't just watch mind

until

you are able to go

deeper into the meditation

so it's not as and you still need the

feeling

is still there and when there's contact

body is still there

so the mind objects

now one of the things that's really

amazing

is the uh

hindrances by most people that are

practicing meditation

they treat hindrances like it's some

kind of enemy

and they try to suppress the hindrances

and they try to push them down

and they complain when there is some

kind of a loud noise

that quotes disturbs my meditation

now this is a major problem

if you want to be successful with your

meditation

all of these are part

of being successful

and when you're practicing the four

foundations of mindfulness correctly

you're using them

so that your mind will

not be so susceptible

to hindrances

now again your hearing means say

the same thing over and over again

because it is

so incredibly important

when vipassana came to america

the vipassana teachers thought that uh

keeping the precepts was too close to

the catholic religion where there was a

lot of

rejection fear

and guilty feeling

so they didn't stress the importance of

keeping the precepts

now the precepts are not laws

that you have to follow

but there are suggestions

that when you do follow the precepts

mind will become more clear and you'll

be able to sit

and more quickly get into

your

object of meditation and stay with it

which a lot of people call concentration

and to be honest it is a form of

concentration

but it's not the same

[Music]

as what the buddha taught

so i don't like to use the word

concentration

i like to use the word collectedness

because that's more accurate

towards being successful

with the meditation

now because the the five

hindrances are the first thing that's

talked about

when you're talking about mind objects

it's pretty important

but what is your instruction when a mind

mind gets distracted or

just ignore it or suppress

it push it away stop it from coming up

and that gets you to practice wrong

effort that means you're trying too hard

and an awful lot of people that are

practicing

the other forms of meditation wind up

with

massive headaches and pressure

in their heads

and you go to the teacher and you say

boy i really got this headache

and my mind is so active

and what do they tell you to do oh it'll

go away eventually don't

don't pay attention to it is that

part of full awareness

or are you getting into a different

form of meditation

that some people say is a form of

self-hypnosis

and then you can develop this idea that

you can sit with a quiet mind without

having any disturbance at all

but that's the force of the

concentration

causing that to appear

faster

and it seems to work

because the hindrances don't come up the

force of the concentration

pushes it down

and that is not the path of the buddha

full awareness think of that what is

full awareness supposed to be

suppression something that makes your

mind go

and get real tight

it doesn't lead to the freedom

and it reinforces

the idea of i am that

now what's one of the first things that

you hear when you when you practice

meditation with other people

aneesha dukkha anatta

what is anata that's a big question for

an awful lot of people

it means i'm not there how can i not be

there and be aware of it

who's aware and there's all of these

kind of questions that come up

so it's a real amazing phenomena

that so many people like to take the

idea of the buddha

teaching freedom

and they want that

to let go of that suffering

but they're not willing to try the way

the buddha suggests

so they go off on other paths and they

might call it buddhism

they might even read

some things from

the suttas

but it's really confusing

and it doesn't work very well

now when you come here and you practice

the first day i'm gonna start showing

you

something different i don't care

how long people have been practicing

meditation

i'm showing you something different it's

new

it's exciting and it's old

because this is closer to the original

teaching of the buddha himself

the buddha the first discourse that he

gave was the eightfold path

among other things

and in that eightfold path

is very clear instruction

in how to practice

the way he's showing

now he was showing people that have been

doing meditation for a long time they've

been doing all kinds of different things

they even pushed him away because they

he wouldn't continue on when he saw it

didn't work

when he came back he had to convince

them

that there is a different way

and the way is the eightfold path

but it's a different way it's a middle

way of looking at things

a lot of people think that that's just

surface stuff

but it was actually incredibly deep

because the eightfold path is the middle

way it's a middle way

that eliminates gets rid of

that false belief in a personal

self anitra dukkha anata

now a lot of people say anata a

means no atta is self

and that's as far as they go with the

definition

so i give it a different

definition

anata is the impersonal

way of seeing life

now this gets all confused because

there's an awful lot of people

that they say well you have to be

mindful

for years

literally

uh more than 20 years

my teachers when i ask them what

mindfulness

is uh just be aware

well what in the world is that supposed

to mean

you're supposed to know what that

definition

means and now you have a whole lot of

different definitions and that confuses

everything

when you look at dependent origination

you see

that this is a process of the way

the buddha describes how this

all works this is a process

and it's not a personal process it's not

something that's owned by

me

it's just a scientific

way of looking

at how this

life process works

now let's get back to the definition of

mindfulness

with the understanding i just gave you

this will make complete sense

mindfulness is remembering

to observe how mind's

attention moves from one thing to

another

that's another way of saying it's

a way of remembering

because you have to keep your attention

on your object to meditation pretty well

you have to keep your attention there

to be able to observe

that this is a process

and it's an impersonal process

no because everything is so intertwined

i want you to go back to the sati patana

suta

and look at the instructions in

meditation that the buddha gives for

mindfulness of breathing

but it's not only mindfulness of

breathing

it's every kind of meditation that the

the buddha taught

this is the instruction

now when you get to this

section of the sati patana

this is part of observing the mind

our body as a body

when breathing in long

he understands i breathe it in long

when breathing out long he understands i

breathe out long

while breathing in short he understands

i breathe in

short while breathing out short he

understands i breathe out short

now when you're given

instruction and mindfulness of breathing

does it say that you focus

someplace in your body

does this say you only

pay attention to the breath

and suppress or ignore anything else

is the nose or

the abdomen or the upper lip

is that talked about

is that mentioned in this instruction

no why because it's not there

why did we start teaching differently

from the first set of the instruction

and yes i was taught that way for 20

years

by myriad different meditation

teachers because i was doing mindfulness

of breathing

to the exclusion

of the other

parts of the saudi patana suta

i was supposed to focus on that

and i was supposed to focus so

deeply that i would see the beginning

of the in-breath the middle

of the in-breath

and the going out

of the in-breath then

pause and

then breathing in

so i was supposed to keep my attention

on that

to the exclusion of every every other

part of the sadhi patana suta

and that is why a lot of people are

practicing

one pointed concentration

because they believe that this is the

way that the buddha taught

and they don't investigate

and see what's the rest of the

instruction

they don't investigate that at all

so it's a pretty interesting phenomena

that over the years

the buddhist teaching actually pretty

much disappeared

and as a result a lot of the different

people that wanted to follow the

buddha's path and of

buddhist philosophy they began to change

things around to suit

what they thought was what the buddha

was talking about

and they added weird things into it

because they weren't processing

processing i don't like that word very

much

they weren't experiencing becoming

arahats and they still wanted people to

come and follow what they thought the

buddha was

teaching they developed

this idea of a bodhisattva

what is a bodhisattva vow

a vow taken to become

a future buddha

and then the philosophies got going more

and more

and then it just turned into a thing

where you don't even expect to become

awakened

because you've taken the bodhisattva the

bodhisattva valve stops you

from

experiencing nibana in this lifetime

so all of these things are so much

intertwined

that people have become attached to it

and of course they're going to ignore

any other person that

doesn't agree with what they're doing

that's kind of the nature of

life

and as a result we we

lose this simple instruction

of the meditation

and take on a much more difficult kind

of meditation

it's kind of interesting because

for instance somebody just wrote me a

letter

on the email and they said you know i've

practiced goenka's style

meditation and i'm not putting down

going up by

saying this this is just the fact that

he practiced that

and he had fear every time he sat down

to meditate

and he practiced it for 20 years

because he had such confidence

in a teacher

and it didn't lead to what he

thought it should lead to

and he had this fear for 20 years

and then he began he ran across

some youtubes that i'd give talks on

and he started to see

that he was causing that fear in himself

because he was taking it personally

and now he doesn't have fear

and he's so thankful

that's how we get misguided in doing a

lot of the

different things because we have

confidence in them

i think it's kind of a personality

uh attachment

that we get to other teachers well

seems that he's right he's saying a lot

of the words that i agree with so he

must be right

now when you come and teach you'll hear

me say i don't want you to believe a

word i say

i want you to experience

what i'm talking about and judge for

yourself

whether it's the correct path or not

you have to take that responsibility for

yourself

and if you want to add this or that

from some other meditation because it

seemed to work

and and your practice isn't going very

well

then look at that and tell yourself

well you know i've been trying this

and it didn't work maybe

if i try something else and completely

follow that suggestion

that you're going to be successful

i'm not a proselytizer i'm not trying to

get you to do something

that you don't want to do for yourself

you are your own teacher

and you're teaching yourself by direct

practice

all i'm asking you to do

is investigate a new way

completely

like taking all of the sati patana sutra

and using them instead

of just taking part and then doing

something else with it

just see for yourself

i'm not here to criticize another

person's way

are there advantages to doing the

meditation the way you do

some of them some of them they can be

not such good advantages

it's up to you what you're doing

so please don't criticize

me and say that i'm against this other

person

i'm not

i mean i've even gone so far as to be in

goenka's house in india and this is

after he died

and talked with his brother

about meditation

and it was very cordial

we didn't argue we didn't fight we

didn't say

this way is the way and that way is

supposed to be the way

and and we we got along

famously because we were

able to listen to each other

and then was willing to change

a little bit and see if it helped

and now they're starting to teach goinka

in a different way that doesn't

push as hard doesn't need as much

energy and they're starting to see

more and more that

they are having more joy come up into

their life

they're not following exactly these

instructions

but they did incorporate

the relaxed step which is

letting go of

craving

so let's get back to

the actual instructions

now the key word

that is pretty much ignored

with you understand when you take a long

breath and when you take a short breath

the word that's

pretty much un misunderstood

is the word misunderstand

it doesn't say focus it says you know

when you're breathing

and you don't have to focus any place in

your body you know when you take a

breath

you know when it's long you know when

it's short

that's all that's all it means

you don't have to add any other

instruction to that

it means pay attention so you

understand when you're breathing and how

your breathing is short

or subtle or

gross and big you know

the next part is the actual instruction

it's only two sentences

i sh he trains thus

i shall breathe in experiencing the

whole body of

breath now

the of breath

is not in the actual

suta

it's the whole body

you know what's happening in your body

you know when you're sitting and you get

a pain you know it's there

you you're practicing

this part of the meditation

now the thing that is important

to understand is

the buddha gave us the perfect

instruction

in how to handle

different things that happen in the body

and that is to use the six r's

now i say the six r's

because that's an easier way to

understand

what right effort actually is

right effort is four parts you can read

that in a lot of different

books and such

but what to do with them is not in those

books

because they say suppress push away

stop

fight with or try to just leave it there

by

itself

right effort is first

recognizing

when your mind is not on your object of

meditation

second

release

that distraction what does that mean

that means as soon as you see

that your mind is pulled away from

that

let it be there by itself

don't get involved in thinking about

what that distraction is

that just means that it's going to keep

coming back and it's going to get bigger

and more intense

as you put your attention on it

as you feed it with

your attention

so you don't make a big deal out of any

kind of distraction

you allow it to be there by itself

and don't keep your attention on it

anymore

if you don't feed it with your

distraction

it's going to go away by itself

next you relax

now what is a distraction where did the

distraction come from

the distraction came from

past unwholesome

activity

in other words you broke a precept

now you see why i was talking about

precepts earlier now you see

what's the cause of every distraction

well what happens when you break a

precept

you have a tiny little voice in your

mind that says i shouldn't have done

that

and you feel guilty so

every distraction is an old

feeling of guilt

that you identified with that you took

personally

i shouldn't have done that

now we've all broken precepts we've all

broken

all of the precepts at some point or

another in some lifetime or other

we don't have to know what the precept

is that we broke

what we need to do

[Music]

is recognize

that it's there let it be there by

itself

and relax relax

the tension and tightness in your head

in your mind

now a lot of you have heard me talk

about

the meninges and how that's just a bag

that goes over the brain

every time you have a hindrance arise

your brain expands and causes

subtle tension and tightness in your

head

in your mind and actually

it extends to the meninges that goes

around your spine

so we're talking about the whole body

how you relax

how do you relax you

let it be there by itself without

keeping your attention on it

excuse me

now that's half

of right effort what's the other part

or parts

bringing up something wholesome

now let me back up a little bit when you

relax that tension and tightness you'll

notice in your mind

you don't have any thoughts you don't

have any distractions

your mind is alert

without a lot of effort

and your mind is pure because you have

let go

of that false belief in a personal

self you have let go of craving

pretty amazing

so when you put a smile

into your practice

you're doing a couple of things at the

same time that you don't really notice

that much

but after a period of time you do notice

it

the more you smile and i'm talking about

all the time smile i'm not talking about

just

sitting but the more

my

the better your mindfulness becomes the

better your

observation power becomes

the easier it is to recognize

when your mind starts to get tight

and you recognize it more easily

and you use the six ours

and you recognize that your mind's

starting to get tight

and you allow it to be there and relax

so smiling is a major

part of the practice that's not talked

about

too much in in the buddhist

texts but it is talked about

and it is implied in the third

noble truth the cessation of suffering

what's the opposite expression

of suffering what's the opposite of that

smiling being happy

now smiling is kind of misunderstood i

know that there are some meditation

teachers that they've heard about

smiling enough they'll tell you

okay smile then i'll give that in the

first day of the instruction and not

talk about it again

and they also will talk about

more about relaxing

but they'll just tell you that one time

and then that you're

on it for the rest of the meditation

they don't

emphasize it near enough

to be successful

but you hear me talk about a lot because

i think it's that

important and practicing right effort

every time you smile

every time you use the six r's

you are practicing the entire eightfold

path

at that time

so you're on the right path

kind of amazing to think how how

intertwined

everything really is and

how you can do so much

in such such a simple way

i know a lot of people that practice

one point of concentration or they don't

like to call it that

whatever kind of concentration that they

don't have a relaxed step in

and they will defend it

this is the right way when they start to

practice

just out of curiosity to see if it works

or not

and their mindfulness is strong enough

they're gonna see every time they relax

there's pressure that's being let go of

that they didn't see before

and they will start to

be more successful with the meditation

now they've been practicing a form of

mindfulness

that's not what the buddha taught but

it's a form of mindfulness

and their mindfulness is strong enough

to be able to recognize

oh this is different this is nice

i like it

now one of the things that's been going

around with so many

teachers is they like to talk

more about suffering than how to get rid

of the suffering

and that's that's a pretty remarkable

thing

and a lot of people walk around saying

buddhism is some form of pessimism

and that's the opposite what it's what's

really happening

but because an awful lot of people

the monks and that sort of thing english

is their second language

they don't understand the subtleties of

there is suffering in life and they

don't

understand the difference between that

and all life is suffering

which is pretty big

my whole career as a monk has been

dedicated

to the idea that

the meditation is supposed to be fun

it's okay to laugh

i've had students that are

really gifted artists in one form

or another quit

because they thought buddhism was more

important

and when i get a hold of them like why

do you

why are you quitting why are you not

doing more of your artwork why aren't

you being more creative

well all life is suffering and i'm

supposed to suffer so i really do a good

job of that

i have a friend that quit he had a

master's in music

and he quit his music and he suffered a

lot because of it and felt guilty any

time he picked up his instruments to

play it

when i started talking to him i

convinced him that that was the wrong

idea

and then he started to get it

especially when i got him to start

practicing the six

hours i hadn't seen him for 20 years

we had a connection that was remarkable

but he got this

idea that he was supposed to suffer so

he was going to do the best he could at

it

and he did not have a happy life

he had moments of happiness of course

everybody does

but it's just the misunders

misunderstanding of the

translation so when i convinced him

he was supposed to uh

have joy and head of joy while he was

playing his instrument

right after that he practiced it he had

a lot more joy in his life

and he got into a con

orchestra

playing professionally

and he had pushed that away because he

wanted to get off the wheel of samsara

just because he followed

what the teacher said to do not what the

buddha said to do

now i hear comments about

this is vimala ramsey's way

of doing things

no it's not my way

i'm only a guide you're your own teacher

you learn how to teach yourself from

direct experience and

then observe whether it's working

or not

and when it does you get excited

and you go okay let's do that some more

this is nice this

is fun and this

is the way it's supposed to be

it's not my way

what i get to do is observe your

successes

and that makes me ecstatically happy

but you're taking the responsibility to

change

you want to change because

you're suffering

and you're willing to change to let go

of those old habits that

have a tendency to pull you down have a

tendency to make you depressed have a

tendency to make you fearful

filled with anxiety

this man that wrote and this was just a

couple days ago

he said for 20 years i have had panic

attacks

20 years of panic attacks being afraid

of something

whatever it was and now

after a couple of years of practicing

this not coming to the center

he wouldn't take that long

but he did it on its own and he has

no panic attacks arising anymore

how sweet is that

and that gets my juices going

because that's just an affirmation

that what he is doing

is correct and what the buddha

taught really does work

can't get any better than that

it's exciting

to see people that have

been so hard on their self for so many

years

and criticize their self that they

really hate themselves

and they get caught in the psychological

stuff about the way you overcome it is

just by

reliving it over and over and over and

over again

for years and then you finally won't

have any reaction to it

that's psychology

but when you follow the buddha and his

four noble truths and four foundations

of mindfulness

your progress is fast

you don't have to suffer for years and

years and years

you learn by having a

light mind your

light mind is alert

your light mind is pure

and the more you

practice it the better you get at it

until it becomes a habit

and what happens after that

you start developing more and more

equanimity in your mind you more more

balance

you don't have to do the psychological

things like beating on a pillow to get

rid of your anger which really makes

your anger bigger and more intense

doesn't make it go away

but you feel some relief when you

finally let it go

in your mind and then you go well that

seemed to work

but how long does it work until the next

situation that anger comes up

now you haven't been mindful of it you

haven't been aware of it

you've let your mind dictate

how to control what you're doing while

you're doing it

and quite often that leads to a state

of remorse and sadness

and problems for yourself

well you don't need to have years of

sadness or

fear or anxiety to overcome it

that's not why you're here somebody just

asked me

well i'm alive but why why am i here

and i told him that the reason you're

here is to learn

and to be happy

yeah but there's so much bad stuff

happening

in the world well that's his world

there's bad stuff happening yes

but it doesn't have to affect you in a

negative way

you can have balance without getting

caught

in what the dependent origination

calls bhava

now i give it a different definition

than other people

i've talked to a lot of very very

advanced monks about this and they agree

with me that it is a better definition

than existence what is that supposed to

mean

or becoming what is that supposed to

mean

i call it habitual

emotional tendency sometimes i throw

emotional in there sometimes i don't

but it's your habitual tendency that's

what you get caught

with when you try to think

you're feeling and try to control your

feeling with your thoughts

it don't work

but you get attached to doing it in the

same way over and over and over again

and then you run to a medical doctor and

said

please give me some pills so i won't be

depressed

and they give you pills and it dulls you

out so you walk around like a zombie and

you're

not so depressed but you're not so

happy either

i get people complaining to me

because they say it's harder to get rid

of this stuff than what you're saying

but it isn't really not if you're

sincere in change

now there are some people that come and

they don't want to change

and if they're not willing to change

their perspective

and way of doing things

if they want to keep to the old way of

doing things

then why come to me

go find another teacher and i've told

some people that

because they weren't willing to change

they weren't willing to have a more

uplifted mind because they were

so attached and thought they were doing

it the right way

okay i have to have enough compassion to

for them to allow them

to go and continue suffering

i can't take somebody's suffering away

i can allow them the space to have their

suffering

and i can love them completely

not with any heavy judgments in my mind

just love them because they're there

that's what true compassion is

not trying to take pain away from

someone

else if you try to take pain away from

someone else

you're going to make yourself suffer

and when you're suffering how can you

help them to overcome theirs

you're not being a very good example

right

so

learn to change

accept the fact that you're gonna change

and you're gonna get into

some unusual situations that you've

never

experienced before because your mind is

gonna test you in all kinds of ways

to see whether you have learned that or

not and it

always comes down to

keeping your precepts without breaking

them

for some people to heal themselves

is a very frightening experience

because it's new ground that they've

never walked on

before and maybe they'll sink into it

who knows maybe they'll harm themselves

but that's just mind talking

suit the number 35 the

sachika suta talks about

the five aggregates

and the buddha named each aggregate and

said

can you control that

is that you is that yours

of course the answer is no you can't

control this stuff

that proves in itself that this is part

of a process

it's not a personal process

well if it's not a personal process

who benefits from that

well you do and everybody else around

you

because you have given up your old ways

of handling

your habitual tendencies

then i don't want you to believe me

i have my own stuff

to take care of

and i'm not perfect at it if i was i

would be an arahat and i promise you i

am

not

wish i was but that wish gets in the way

of everything

so

life is here so you can learn

there was a movie called lucy

and morgan freeman was talking about

what's the purpose of life and he came

up with the idea

cells talk to each other

and one cell teaches a new way of doing

something

and it talks to something else so from

that

he said life is about

learning and

showing others

a different way a way to exist

that has less suffering in it

amazing movie it really is good

highly recommended

why because it has that truth in it it

is a dhamma

movie

and it has bizarre stuff in it

but it's just always coming back to that

what's the purpose of life

the purpose of life is to continue on

and teach each other

now how do you teach each other a lot of

people think it's by

talking and it's not

it's by example

it's by i used to have this emotional

upset

and got very angry and now the same kind

of situation comes up

and people see that you're not

reacting in the same way and then

they're they want to communicate with

you and

what's different how did you do that

but you always lead by example

and the more happy you become

the more you spread that to other people

and i do understand that there's a lot

of political nonsense that's going out

and a lot of trying to manipulate people

into their mental states so that they

stay angry so that things can get put

over on them

well why be attached to some political

view

when you can show others

the way to live

now david just got another

i bought another book on the cosmology

of buddhism and where it came from and

how all of these things these ideas

started to manifest

and some of it is very accurate some of

it

it causes questions to arise

but and you can believe it or not

but there were times when

the earth was fairly young

and devas used to come down and live on

the earth

because it was such a pleasant pace

and after a period of time

there's changes that started happening

and they started thinking

about telling a lie

now before that this was like a perfect

place to live

everything was in the right proportion

and you had

food and you didn't have to pay for the

food all you had to do was pick it up

off the ground

and eat it and

then they started getting this

idea that they were going to tell a lie

and one of the davis decided he was

going to take responsibility for that

now this

is when their lifespan was very long

like a hundred thousand years you can

believe that or not i don't really care

it's just the example that i'm giving

and when they lied their lifespan went

down to

ten thousand years

and then they started breaking

uh sexual precepts and devas were very

much appalled at that and they wouldn't

come down to this earth anymore

and after that there seemed to be a need

for

government

and the lifespan gets shorter and

shorter because of that

because there was a lot more hatred

one one group of people wanted to

own what another group of people owned

and they went in and stole it and and

killed people well that shortens a

lifespan

so now the lifespan is not very long

because of not following precepts

but when you're an example of following

precepts

you're helping other people to live

longer and be more happy

and that's how you teach

just like teaching oneself from another

or to another

oh you can believe that or not

i don't care but it does seem to make

sense

and it gives you an idea of

how historical things come to pass

and how they change because of the

historical things

and how that's intertwined with

your precepts

so i didn't even

get through the first part of the sati

padana

well let's let's go to the last sentence

of this

because this to me is the most important

part

that has been ignored

by people that are teaching meditation

he teaches and he trains thus

i shall breathe in tranquilizing

the bodily formation

i shall breathe out tranquilizing

the bodily formation

and this is important

now you can take the breath and say no i

don't want to

do it with the breath i can do this with

loving kindness

i shall stay on my object of meditation

and relax

every time there's a distraction i'm

going to use the six r's

these are the same instructions

with a little twist to them

but you know that the buddha taught

loving kindness meditation a lot more

than he taught mindfulness and breathing

i did mindfulness of breathing because

they wanted to follow

exactly what the buddha was practicing

but the buddha came out and said that

your

progress in meditation is much faster

with loving kindness meditation than it

is any other kind of meditation

sure i can teach other kinds of

meditation i know them intimately i've

practiced them a lot i know what happens

when and i know what's important and

what is not

but if you want to just do do

mindfulness of breathing you're not

going to have

as much personality development

why when you're practicing loving

kindness you practice it all the time

and that means with your daily activity

so you practice it more

and the more you practice it

the more of a habit it becomes

the more personality change there is

and the more equanimity you have

when you're practicing mindfulness of

breathing and you're doing your daily

activities what are you supposed to do

oh i i have this emotional state

stop what everybody's doing i have to

take a breath

and get mindful

it doesn't work as well that's why the

progress is

not as fast

i have students and they can verify

this that their progress in the

meditation was

faster in 10 days than it was

years of mindfulness of breathing

what do you want to do it's up to you

i don't like teaching mindfulness of

breathing so much

just because it takes so long for

progress to occur

and the personality development

is different than the loving kindness

loving-kindness is a bit softer it has

more compassion in it

it helps you to smile more easily

although i do

insist that people smile when they're

doing

mindfulness of breathing which is a new

concept in the world

it just doesn't work as fast

the end results can be the same

it is up to you i have had some

people come they insist on continuing on

with the mindfulness of breathing fine

until they start having and then they

start having insights that they've never

had before

into how this process worked

and then they want to switch over to

loving kindness

and that's great because they already

have a deep understanding of how it

works it's just a little

tweak in the in the progress

over to loving kindness

so it's your choice

the end result of any kind of meditation

that the buddha taught

is that you

have let go of suffering and understand

how this process works

your life will become more content

and at ease

and basically more fun

a lot more laughing

and it's not laughing at things it's

laughing

with things

just seeing some butterflies fly around

can make me

grin and laugh

look at what they're doing isn't that

great

and we have animals around here

wild and tame

but they always bring joy when i see

them

and if they're not around for a while i

miss them

is that an attachment no it's just a

wish for their happiness it's compassion

for them

so again i've talked for a long time

and i uh feel like i've

gone on to belong

so please

do you have any questions

don't be shy thank you

hello sorry tomorrow you go yeah no i

just want to

yeah i just want to say to bonte i am

one of the

example that you have just mentioned and

talked about

like i'm so grateful in the past few

months that what i've been

through from a different like uh toy

path that i have been trying to

understand what's going on all along

until i was like by whatever reason

i was got to uh to have you on youtube

that i have such a beautiful like um

i don't know it's maybe you're you're

saying that intuition that i

know that this is the right way i i i

dare to uh

to continue and trial and er it makes a

difference for me

just so much like that you have to have

been just

telling everyone and it is my personal

very deep-hearted experience that i have

been through in the fast pass

four months in meditation and past

diamonds

in listening to your talks it has made

such a

deep change that i have find so

beautiful and it is

all about like what you are talking

about so

i am so grateful i am so hardly grateful

and i know that i have friends that can

see the change

so it has been a life-changing thing it

is

very it is i don't know what to express

but i just want to let you know

this thank you thank you yeah

thank you very much monkey

it is i don't know how to express

but i i i in your face

the change yes

when i when i first saw you

you were sad a lot of frowning

and young you had deep lines in your

face and now they're gone

isn't that you become more beautiful

a relief yeah

thank you

thank you bonsai for your talk you're

welcome

i i wanted to uh

just your opinion on on this view so

i'm imagining if someone is new to twin

and they are radiating loving kindness

to their spiritual friend

and they want to know how does this

apply to the four foundations of

mindfulness

and i imagine saying something like this

uh

well you observe the body because you

observe

tensions and you relax using the six

stars in the body

um as far as feelings you will notice

you know pleasant

unpleasant you know or neither pleasant

or unpleasant feelings

in your body or to whatever comes up in

your mind

and you observe mind objects when you

watch the hinges

which are your teachers right but when

it comes to observing mind

you almost have to wait until you get to

neither perception

nor neither not perception or perception

or how do they observe mind at an early

stage

it says in

which is mindfulness of mind

[Music]

that you see

all of the jhanas

all of the dramas

okay it doesn't it it says it

in the commentary so you can understand

that

it is talking about dramas everything in

the sati patana suta

is talking about dramas

and that's very much misunderstood and a

lot of people they think it's about

uh this kind of concentration or that

kind of

concentration sometimes they say well

it's

moment-to-moment concentration

and that's why i don't like the word

because it's so misunderstood

it misrepresented what the buddha was

talking about

and there's no moment-to-moment

awareness

in the suttas that is in commentary

it doesn't match up

with the actual sutra themselves

so to observe mind one would have to be

in a genre

right okay so someone who's just

starting twin

you know week one uh well

not even week one let's assume they

haven't experienced china yet then we

would say just

keep practicing and then you'll observe

mind as mind

it'll happen on its own i wouldn't talk

to them like that they wouldn't

understand it

i talk in more simple terms

um while you're sitting do you

experience

joy

when the joy fades away are you able to

stay with your object of meditation a

little bit more easily

more at ease and

uh over a period of time it starts to

last a little bit longer

now that's getting into jhana but i'm

not going to tell them that

you're getting into jhana because

there's too many ideas that aren't

understood

see it's more for the the guide

what is in each jhana

so i can understand where you are

and i can be able to talk to you in a

language that you're going to be able to

understand

because you've had the experience

and that's the advantage

of being with a guide

and talking with them every day

a lot of people like i know

at ims in in berry massachusetts

they only have an interview every other

day

but it's not always with the same

teacher

and it gets confusing and as a result

the progress

isn't as great as it could be although

there

is some people that are

successful with the way they're teaching

i'm not criticizing them i'm just

showing you an example

of the importance of a teacher being

able to see

you every day and get to know

you a bit so they can judge

whether you're staying on the path

correctly or not

that's all my job is

is to see whether you're staying on the

path if you start

going away from that a bit

then i'm gonna ask you questions so you

can see

that that's what you're doing and you

can get back on the path

yourself

okay okay thank you thank you dante

oh you're very welcome hi

comment hello debra hi hi hello

how are you um well i've got a bit of a

migraine today so i'm off and on here

but i'm pretty good but i wanted to

share with you after healing

the other person um that

i've been doing forgiveness meditation

with great dedication

and last monday i felt a real

shift of letting go

and i guess i complete forgiveness of

anybody and where they are

and the very next day the person who

i've had the most problem with phone me

and

and apologized and i thought

it's just like monty said

i didn't do it intending to get that i

and that's what i wanted to be really

aware i wasn't doing it for an outcome

but i just thought she's like he said i

could have saved myself a lot of trouble

here

i i have a question for you are you

forgiving that headache

not yet but i will okay

yeah i i don't know i don't usually get

headaches

yeah so i in fact very rarely

so but when you forgive it then some of

the aversion to that pain

stops bothering you so it lightens up

and

eventually it'll fade away i hope yeah

i think there's a lot of tension you

know i mean this has been a family thing

that's been going on for seven years

seven years and

to have that shift was just so

i mean it's just i just feel like crying

i just

excellent i just can't believe it i

didn't think it would happen in this

life

and um isn't it fun

yeah it's amazing

you so much

you're so welcome and thank you for

doing it

well it's the only thing that gave me a

sense of a controller

power or you know to just um i thought

to

bring me into and huge equanimity

you know this week just just like

whatever is there

being themselves and i just have to let

them be and just be

as you said an example of stability and

love so

you're on the right path i know

wonderful thanks

i should mention also one more thing

okay my husband said to me

the other day it's just unbelievable

you're just

you're just amazing you've been just

like what

yeah the way you respond all the time

it's just amazing

so that's helping him to change

too yeah

oh thank you you're doing all the work

you're taking credit but you're doing

the work for well the guidance is very

helpful it's like you said i mean i was

trying to follow some other practices

and they just

it just wasn't creating the energetic

change that and it is an energy

between people because we're all in this

it's just phenomenal you think

my energy changed and that changed there

like

how was i hanging on to them and keeping

them down

it's phenomenal attachments are

very strange things yeah

thank you thank you

i appreciate you very much

thanks

uh panty uh just uh carrying on

from that question about forgiveness

meditation

so i just want to quickly uh talk about

my my experience with forgiveness

meditation

with which i still need some some

guidance from you

um so i have been in some situations in

which

people have behaved in a rather

insulting

fashion to me and um so i think i've

evolved a little bit

from uh previously when i would just try

to uh you know to

just respond in the same way and try to

throw it back at them

uh to now where i realize in my moments

of clarity that

uh that is kind of meaningless um

and um i'm i'm only responding to the

emotions that

that evokes in me not to what they are

saying right

um the the problem is uh

when i'm trying to do forgiveness

meditation

um i guess despite the fact that i have

this realization i

still don't really feel like i want to

i mean i i i don't know if i want to

forgive that person

and it's like i need to have loving

kindness in order to have forgiveness

and i need to have forgiveness in order

to have

so i don't really know and i feel like

like i'm a bit stopped here

your problem is you caught by your

attachment

to wanting to get even

and some revenge in that sort of thing

and it has to be sincere

you have to sincerely want to forgive

somebody

or you're going to be caught with

not wanting

your mind is going to play all kinds of

tricks on you

to distract you away from forgiving

don't get caught up in the stories

only stay with the forgiving

and the relaxed step after

you forgave okay

so you have a distraction you're

thinking about this

or that person and what they said and

you start to get involved

with i don't like what they said and all

of that

forgive yourself for doing that forgive

them

and then relax and come back

and forgive them again

you wear them down that way you wear

down the

uh dissatisfaction

the aversion

the not liking

and you have to ask yourself who doesn't

like

oh it's me well it's me

because i have a hindrance in my mind

and i'm identifying with that

and causing myself a lot of pain

you're doing it to yourself but you're

looking to blame somebody else for your

pain

it takes patience to overcome some of

these kind of problems

because

but now you bring different awareness

that is accepting

of what it is

so you're more alive

when you accept and you're more

relieved when you

finally your mind will say

i really do forgive that person i don't

have any hard feeling toward them

and that will come but you need to have

patience

okay okay uh thank you one day uh just

on on a lighter uh note i uh in the

um youtube video in uh david's youtube

video for

forgiveness meditation he tells the

listeners not to

go beyond the first channel and in this

presentation

and that's not a problem for me because

i've never run beyond the first channel

so it's not a problem okay

for some people they've been doing it

for a while and their mind

wants to go to the the next level but

you need to be able to verbalize

while you're in the first jhana

and that's that's fun forgiveness can i

just

ask one more uh question

um so i'm just curious uh about

uh about this uh so i um

i know that uh you know among humans the

majority are neither

uh you know entirely virtuous nor

entirely

um you know sinful uh and they're

uh they're generally a combination of

both and

um so they they uh developed a perpetual

tendencies that are

uh you know human-like because that's

the form that they lived in in a

particular

existence so um if those

uh i guess my question is what is the

normal

expectation for for an average human

being in terms of what

uh form uh that person will take uh in

in the next um existence

um

[Music]

well that's hard to say because it

depends on their actions for their whole

life

and what they got attached to and

what kind of precepts they broke and how

much

that becomes difficult

to uh

to say but the buddha said there

are five different visions that happen

right before you die

i spent a year with people that were

dying in a nursing home

every about every week there was

somebody

that was there that was dying

and i would spend time with them if they

didn't object

and talk to them about the vision

sometimes

sometimes they would see a

real scary

fire realms and

ice realms and things like that

sometimes they would see a bee

kind of like a a bigfoot you know what a

bigfoot is

they they say it's like an a a gorilla

but

stands more than seven or eight feet

high

and it's covered with hair just like a

gorilla is

and they start dragging them off and

they get into their

oh they're their fears and anxieties and

that sort of thing

and they're going to be reborn in that

realm

where it's not a pleasant realm to be in

and there's going to be a lot of things

that are going to happening to

them limbs cut off every day because

they'll grow back

and that this is not pleasant

there is the animal realm

and you can have visions of animals and

you will be reborn as an animal

there is human realms where

you are visited by

past relatives that have already died

and you communicate with them

and talk to them i've been around quite

a few people that

they're talking and i said who are you

talking to

well i'm talking my relative right over

there

okay

that means that they're going to be

reborn as a human being

and there are some people that have

lived

uplifted lives that doesn't mean they

haven't broken precepts in

in the past they did but they're not as

a big a problem and there are ways that

people

can overcome

some wrongdoing

excuse me

and they're going to be reborn in a

heavenly realm and they'll have visions

of some heavenly beings coming down in a

chariot and picking them up

and they get exceedingly happy and they

whisk off to one of the

heavenly realms

now i've spent time with people that

have had all of those different kinds of

things and what i tried to do

because they were christian i would read

from the bible

and i found out in the bible that there

are the precepts the buddhist precepts

so i would get them to recite the

precepts

and that would uplift their mind it's

such a wholesome thing to do

that they would reborn in a high realm

and i tried to do that but some people

they just

they didn't like it they wouldn't do it

and or they would forget to do it even

while i

was reciting it

and they would be reborn in the lower

realm

so that's the only kind of answer that i

can really give you

and it's to me it's real but don't

believe me

be around people that die and see for

yourself

see whether it's like that uh which

one's the most

uh likely or the biggest group

there's no most likely

it's a pretty small group that gets

reborn in the heavenly realm i'll tell

you that much

because of ignorance because they don't

know

and they might be reborn in an animal

realm

and be around in different

animals as they kill each other and they

cause more

unwholesome karma because of that and

that keeps them there

and they might be around for

the thousands and hundreds of thousands

of years

in an animal realm before they wake up

enough to be reborn

back into a higher realm

so

there's a lot more it's a lot more

crowded in uh

the deva locas are in in abram

in the hell realms in the asura realms

the

the hairy black beast realms

then there is uh

in devaloka

which brings me to a joke that i've told

before i'm turning into braum

there was a guy that died and he had he

had

kind of equal good and bad qualities

and he meets his guide around there and

the

guide says well what realm do you want

to be reborn in

and he said i i don't know

let's go visit him

so he goes to a heavenly realm

and everything is really beautiful

and people are flying around and

dancing and partying and having fun

and then he takes him down to one of the

hell realms

and it's all black and hard to see

and he shows him

this room and it's filled with excrement

and there's a bunch of people in there

and they are whispering something to

each other

and then he's the

guy that's just died

is asked which realm do you want to go

through

you want to go to the heavenly realm and

party and have fun or you want to go

down to this other realm

and the guy's curiosity got real strong

and he wanted to find out what these

people

were whispering

and he decided that going into this room

that really

smelled bad and it was hard to breathe

then it was filled with excrement

but he wanted to find out what they were

saying to each other

so he said i'm going to go into this

room

and he got into the room and he got

close to somebody

and they were whispering to him

[Music]

don't make waves

so that's that's the end of the joke

don't make waves

he gave up a heavenly realm to find out

what that does

so there's a lot of different kinds of

heavenly realms if you want to find out

more about that

write to david he's our

hell realm expert he's got a warp sense

of humor

[Laughter]

and that's not a bad thing

but there there's a hell realm that is

like a big

metal pot

that's filled with molten lead

and this guy when he was

uh living his human life

he was having sexual activity with a lot

of

women that were already married and

caused a lot of problems for a lot of

people

and he was reborn in this hell realm

with that molten pot

and he sank down to the bottom and it

took

50 000 years

to go down to the bottom and then he

would head

back up and it took him 50 000 years to

get up to the top

and he got to the top and he had enough

time to utter

one syllable of some word

and then he started back down again

now thinking about having your entire

body

uh in molten molten lead

that's got to be pretty painful

so he suffered for a long time

and again you can believe these things

or not it's up to you

i'm not trying to scare you with these

kind of things

but it can be an incentive

that you do best when you keep the

precepts without breaking them

okay thank you okay

anybody else

hello hi

how are you today you're really loud

right now

can you hear me okay yeah it is this

yeah i can understand you more more

clearly now

okay great how are you today i'm

pretty good how are you great happy

spring

grant i was outside earlier and there's

lots of people

kind of enjoying the spring weather and

you know happy and smiling so it's very

nice

yeah it's good weather today it's

beautiful

well i have two questions oh well i'll

try to keep my voice down

i have two questions um the first one is

a

practical question so i'm planning on

doing a retreat at amasuka this year

[Music]

and you know in the past i've had um

i've had lyme disease a few times

from ticks um so i'm really curious how

you sort of approach ticks and how you

deal with them there and like

how you do tick safety

what's your approach we give the animals

these pills

that is a repellent for ticks and fleas

so they don't bother them so much

and we try to keep you on the paths

walking paths not going into the forest

because

that's where the ticks and trees and

fleas are

and we give you insect repellent

that's the best we can do

we haven't found another kind of

mystical magical pill that you can take

and

ticks won't won't bother you like the

animals

that's great but you're supposed to

spend your time

mostly sick sitting anyway so you'll be

in

inside and you won't be

troubled by the the ticks and we don't

allow the animals

inside the meditation halls so they're

not gonna the ticks aren't gonna come in

but we do have another another beastie

that

is uh kind of troublesome and that is

a uh wasp

and they sometimes do come in but we

have

catchers that we don't kill them we can

catch them

and let them go outside

because that's where they want to be in

the first place

okay thank you bronte

my my second question um last week i was

asking you about intuition

and um you had a reference to suta where

the

the buddha before his awakening was um

asking his intuition and i think you

mentioned suta 127

but when i look that one up it's the

[Music]

yeah yeah

oh okay um

maybe the version that i had but i was

reading in the buddha

isn't that actually didn't seem to be in

that suit

at all the buddha isn't the mori santa

is

okay well i'll take another look at it

okay try to get one of the later

editions

okay as i remember i've gone through all

of the additions

and they that particular

suta is still the same the bodhisattva

is there and he's

recognized as a bodhisattva and the

buddha

is there because the buddha went to

visit

anuruda and

the other monks

and then they started talking to him

about the meditation

and how it didn't work for them and they

didn't know what the reason

was so the buddha told them about

intuition and how it works because

he gave the example of it working

anything else thank you okay uh no that

is it

yeah thank you okay

anyone else

then let's share some merit

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've thus

acquired for the acquisition of all

kinds of happiness

many beings inhabiting space and earth

devas and nagas of mighty power share

this merit of ours may they long

protect the buddha's dispensation

well i wish you all

a happy week with lots of smiles

and clarity of

mind

[Music]

goodbye

[Music]

you