Zoom Talk MN 142 with Delson Armstrong -The Exposition of Offerings-0yAgEzarJ4Q.en.vtt.txt

From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0yAgEzarJ4Q

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

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

okay

looking good

all right should i get started

all right let's get started

okay so today i am going to be reading

from majminikaya 142.

this is the the kina vibhanga sutta

that is the exposition of offerings

thus if i heard on one occasion

the blessed one was living in the sakyan

country at kapalavatu in negrodus park

then mahapad pajapati gotami

took a new pair of clothes and went to

the blessed one

mahapajapati gotomi is the

is the maternal aunt of the buddha and

after the

after the bodhisattva at the time

his mother passed away uh

she took care of him

and she was his uh

was his maternal aunt but she also was

his

uh stepmother

after paying homage to him she sat down

at one side and said to the blessed one

venerable sir this new pair of clothes

thoughts has been spun by me woven by me

especially for the blessed one venerable

sir let the blessed one accept it from

me out of compassion

when this was said the blessed one told

her

give it to the sangha gotami

when you give it to the sangha both i

and the sangha will be honored

a second time and a third time she said

to the blessed one

venerable sir accepted from me out of

compassion

a second time and the third time the

blessed one told her

give it to the sangha gotami

when you give it to the sangha both i

and the sangha will be honored

then the venerable ananda said to the

blessed one venerable sir

let the blessed one accept new pair of

clots from mahapa japati gautami

maha pajapati gautami has been very

helpful to the blessed one venerable sir

as his mother's sister she was his nurse

his foster mother

the one who gave him milk

she suckled the blessed one when his own

mother died

the blessed one too has been very

helpful to mahaprabhu gautami venerable

sir it is owing to the blessed one that

mahaprabhu

has done for has gone for refuge to the

badal the dhamma and the sangha

it is owing to the blessed one that

mahaprabhu

abstains from killing living beings

from taking what is not given from

misconduct in sensual pleasures from

false speech and from wine liquor and

intoxicants which are the basis of

negligence

so in other words she has her precepts

in order

she maintains her precepts

it is owing to the blessed one that

mahaprabhu

possesses unwavering confidence in the

buddha the dhamma and the sangha

and that she possesses the virtues loved

by the noble ones

it is owing to the blessed one that

mahapa japati

gautami is free from doubt about

suffering

about the origin of suffering

about the cessation of suffering and

about the way leading to the cessation

of suffering

the blessed one has been very helpful

to mahaprabhu gautami

so this indicates that at this time

based on what ananda is saying

uh was a stream enter because these are

the five factors

of the stream enter that is to say

they have

complete conviction

in the buddha in the dhamma and in the

sangha

they maintain their precepts and they

are wholesome in thought

words and in deeds

and when they do break a precept it

would be a minor precept they

immediately

make a confession or make a

determination

that

they will not break that precept again

and the most important part of this

is that

she has no doubt about the four noble

truths so this is one way to understand

how somebody might be a stream enter of

course there's the other three the other

two feathers along with that that is the

better of the personality view the

belief in the personal self that goes

away

and the fetter of clinging to rights and

rituals with the belief that they will

lead to nibana

that goes away as well

that is so ananda that is so when one

person owing to another has gone for

refuge to the buddha the dhamma and the

sangha i say that it is not easy for the

former to repay the latter by paying

homage to him

rising up for him

according him reverential salutation and

polite services

and by providing robes arms food resting

places and medicinal requisites

in other words

by having that conviction in the buddha

the dhamma and the sangha that in itself

is a great thing as soon as you come to

that realization it is indeed difficult

to repay

the teacher or the sangha to be to what

they have provided you because

what they have provided you is

along with the other factors of stream

entry

the understanding of the dhamma to some

extent they have provided you with the

possibility of

no more rebirths in the lower realms and

that is a wonderful thing

that is a huge thing and

all you can do is

repay the sangha

with whatever you want to offer them

with that generosity

that attitude of generosity is really

also

imbued with the attitude of gratitude in

other words

once you understand the scope of

why it is important to

give to the sangha

then you understand how it affects your

own practice

when you give to the sangha when you

give to anybody with a wholesome

intention when you give to somebody with

an attitude of gratitude without any

expectation

with generosity without

having any expectation of any kind of

reward

that in itself is a reward that in

itself is uplifting to the mind

if you think about the times when you

have been

generous to somebody just because it

felt good

you immediately have an uplifted mind

and this is one of the recollections you

can do for your meditation practice

number one you have the precepts which

you continue to maintain

but number two you think about all the

times you've been generous

that generosity immediately brings a

wholesome intention in the mind

it brings clarity in the mind and that

provides

a perfect

situation for your mind to experience

the meditation

and so he goes on to say

when one person owing to another has

come to abstain

from killing living beings

from taking what is not given

from misconduct in sensual pleasures

from false speech and from wine liquor

in intoxicants

in other words when one maintains the

precepts

i say that it is not easy for the former

to repay the latter

by paying homage to him

by paying homage to him rising up for

him

according him reverential salutation and

polite services

and by providing robes arms food resting

places and medicinal requisites

when one person owing to another has

come to un to possess unwavering

confidence in the buddha

the dhamma and the sangha

and to possess the virtues loved by

noble ones i say that it is not easy for

the former

to repay the latter by paying homage to

him

let's go back here paying homage to him

rising up for him

according him

according him reverential salutation and

polite services

and by providing

robes arms food resting places and

medicinal requisites

when one person owing to another has

become free from doubt about suffering

about the origin of suffering about the

cessation of suffering and about the way

leading to the cessation of suffering i

say that it is not easy for him for for

the former

to repay the ladder by paying homage to

him

[Music]

rising up for him according him

reverential salutation and polite

services

and by providing robes arms food resting

places and medicinal requisites

now he gets into the different types of

personal offerings he says

there are fourteen kinds of personal

offerings ananda

one gives a gift to the

accomplished and fully enlightened this

is the first kind of personal offering

one gives a gift to a pacheco buddha but

is a solitary buddha

it's one who becomes self-enlightened

one who becomes

aware of the dhamma and fully realized

but does not go on to teach he doesn't

have

the interest inclination or capacity to

teach so this is a solitary buddha

this is the second kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift

a gift to an arahat disciple

of the tata this is the third kind of

personal offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of arahitship

this is the fourth kind of offering

so here one is the arahat with fruition

and the other is the

with path

this is the fourth kind of personal

offering one gives a gift to a

non-returner

this is the fifth kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of non-return so that's the

anagami with path and origami with

fruition this is the sixth kind of

personal offering

one gives a gift to a once returner

sakadagami that is the seventh kind of

personal offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of one's return

so that is the sakuragami with path

this is

the eighth kind of personal offering

one gives a gift to a stream enterer

this is the ninth kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization

of the fruit of stream entry

and so that again is stream enter with

path and stream entry with fruition

this is the tenth kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to one outside

the dispensation who is free from lust

for central pleasures

this is the 11th kind of personal

offering

so this could be any other kind of

ascetic or

any kind of monk outside of

the dharma outside of buddhism

and even if you give them an offering

you give it with gratitude you give it

with generosity

and that's still considered to be an

effective offering it says who is free

from lust for central pleasure so

that is to say that even if it is

somebody who is outside of the buddha's

dispensation

they have a certain level of wisdom they

still have a certain level of

understanding which leads them to

no longer attaching clean

essential pleasures

they might be doing their own thing in

terms of religious or spiritual

uh efforts but they are on the way to

trying to get away from attaching to

spiritual uh attaching to central

pleasures so it's still a valid offering

to give

one gives a gift to a virtuous ordinary

person this is a 12th kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to an immoral ordinary

person so that's interesting one gives a

gift to an an immoral ordinary person

this is the 13th

kind of personal offering

even if somebody is immoral maybe you

don't know it but if somebody is immoral

and you still give with generosity you

still give with the attitude of

gratitude that still uplifts your mind

the whole point here is how how do you

intend or what is your intention when

you give whether it's

food or clothing or shelter or medicines

or anything maybe it's just

giving a ride to somebody who needs a

ride to the train station or to the

airport

maybe it's just somebody who needs a

smile it doesn't matter if the person is

moral or immoral what matters is you

remain on in a wholesome state of mind

and as easy as giving giving away your

smile you immediately uplift the other

person with that smile so

actually both yourself and the other

person are uplifted for that moment

one gives a gift to an animal

this is the 14th kind of personal

offering

so you can give to a pet you can give to

dog or a cat or

an animal you see on the way to ducks to

squirrels

whatever it might be those are still

living beings and giving to living

beings

it provides an uplifting mind an

uplifted mind

hear in ananda by giving a gift to an

animal

the offering may be expected to repay a

hundred fold

what that really means and this is

according to the commentary

is when you give to an animal just by

sharing your food to

sharing your food with a dog or a cat or

a pet or whatever it might be

that offering may be expected to repay a

hundred fold that means that for the

next hundred existences or at some point

a hundred different existences

you are expected to have an uplifted

state of being

by giving a gift to an immoral ordinary

person the offering may be expected to

repay a thousand-fold by giving a gift

to a virtuous ordinary person the

offering may be expected to repay a

hundred thousand-fold

by giving a gift to one outside the

dispensation who was free from lust for

central pleasures

the offering may be expected to repay a

hundred thousands

a hundred thousand times a hundred

thousand fold so

you can do the math on that one

by giving a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of stream entry

the offering may be expected to repay

incalculable

incalculably

immeasurably

in other words

there is a hierarchy in terms of how you

give and who you give to

and eventually when you give to the

other attainers

whether it's a stream enter whether it's

sakadagami there is

a level of fruition uh of that giving so

it would be

it would give more fruit to give to

sakuragami to then to a stream enter or

to an onagami then to a sakuragami or to

an arahat then to an onigami and of

course to a pacheco buddha or buddha but

we don't have those nowadays so

you know besides you don't really know

who who that attainer is whether they

have stream entry or not whether they

have sakuragami or not whether they are

in anagami or not whether they're in

arahat or not

regardless you still give

and as the buddha was saying earlier

when you give to the sangha

you honor him and the sangha so whenever

you give to a monastic it's not you're

giving it just specifically

to that particular monastic you are

offering this

as a way of repayment for the

the benefits that you received from the

dharma through the sangha and through

the buddha so when you offer something

to the sangha or to a monastic you're

actually offering it to that monastic

who represents the entire sangha so they

will accept it gladly on behalf of the

sangha

but they don't accept it for themselves

it's not something that is personal in

that sense it is for the entire sangha

then should be said about giving to a

stream enter what should be said about

giving a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of one's return

way once returner

the one who has entered upon the way to

the realization of the fruit of

non-return

who a non-returner

to one who has entered upon the way to

the realization of the fruit

what should be said about giving a gift

to at the target accomplished and fully

enlightened

now he gets into a different category of

different kinds of offerings he says

there are seven kinds of offerings made

to the sangha anandam

one gives a gift to the sangha of both

bekus and bikunis headed by the buddha

this is the first kind of offering made

to the sangha

this is interesting so he says or rather

the text says bhikkhus and bikunins

but a little historical perspective on

this it was really at the request of

mahaprabhu

gautami who wanted to go forth and

become

a monastic

and at this point in time she is a lay

person who wants to offer these clots to

the buddha

so it seems to suggest then that this

edition of the bikunis came out came

about later just to

give clarification that it is for the

bikus and for the bikunis

um even though

the bikini

the the idea of bikunis uh didn't yet

come into being

until mahapajapati and

other women are uh with her requested

that they go they'd be allowed to go

forth

so then he says one gives a gift to a

sangha of both because and bikunis after

the tata has attained final nibana

in other words there is the offering

that's given

when buddha is still around

it's given to both

the sangha of both bikunis and bikus

when he is still around and their second

type is when he has continued on into or

passed on into prairie nebana and so

after the buddha the sangha still lives

and so it is right to still offer the

sangha even after

the buddha has passed on

here's another one one gives a gift to a

sangha of bhikkhus

this is the third kind of offering made

to the sangha one gives a gift to a

sangha of bhikkhunis so separately one

to the male monastics and separately

one to the female monastics this is the

fourth kind of offering mate the sangha

one gives a gift saying appoint so many

bekus and bikunis for me from the sangha

this is the fifth kind of offering made

to the sangha

one gives a gift saying appoint so many

bekus for me from the sangha

this is the sixth kind of offering

made to the sangha

one gives a gift saying appoint so many

bhikkhunis from me from the sangha

this is the seventh kind of offering

made to the sangha

in future times ananda there will be

members of the clan who are yellow necks

immoral of evil character

people will give gifts to those immoral

persons

for the sake of the sangha

even then i say

an offering made to the sangha is

incalculable immeasurable

and i say that in no way is a gift to a

person individually

ever more fruitful

than an offering made to the sangha so

let's break that down

in future times ananda there will be

members of the clan who are yellow necks

immoral of evil character

so these are people who aren't part of

the sangha but they wear the yellow

robes and they roam about begging for

arms and things like that you see that

around

some parts of asia specifically in some

parts of india

and they might be evil of evil character

in the sense that they don't really

follow the precepts and they'll be

immoral

but then people will give gifts to them

for the sake of the sangha even then

because of your

your pure wholesome intention

that purifies that whole process and so

there is an intention of the giver that

purifies and uplifts the mind

even if the recipient

is unwholesome even if the recipient

is immoral and of

not such a great character and then he

says

and i say that in no way is a gift to a

person individually ever more fruitful

than an offering made to the sangha

in other words even if you give to an

arahat with fruition

and you're giving it something to them

personally

you're saying that this is for you

specifically

that's not any more fruitful

than giving something that is meant for

the entire sangha even if that sangha

doesn't have even a stream enter doesn't

have even one stream enter because

you're offering something collectively

to the sangha for their benefit

rather than

rather than having it given individually

to somebody with the idea that this will

benefit just one person it makes more

sense in terms of giving it to a

collective group

or giving it to

that sangha that will benefit even much

there are another four kinds of

purification

of offering

what for

there is the offering that is purified

by the giver not by the receiver

there is the offering that is given

that is purified by the receiver and not

by the giver

there is the offering that is purified

neither by the giver nor by the receiver

there is the offering that is purified

both by the giver and by the receiver

the brother is going to go into how

these four come to be he says

and how was the offering purified by the

giver

not by the receiver

here the giver is virtuous of good

character and the receiver is immoral of

evil character thus the offering is

purified by the giver

not by the receiver

and how is the offering purified by the

receiver not by the giver here the giver

is immoral of evil character and the

receiver is virtuous of good character

thus

the offering is purified by the receiver

and not by the giver

and how is the offering purified neither

by the giver nor by the receiver here

the giver is immoral of evil character

and the receiver is immoral of evil of

evil character

thus the offering is purified neither by

the giver nor by the receiver

and how is the offering purified both by

the receiver and by the giver and by the

receiver

here the giver is virtuous of good

character and the receiver is virtuous

of good character thus the offering is

purified both by the giver and by the

receiver

these are the four kinds of purification

of offering

so here the understanding should be that

when you give

give with a wholesome intention

give with the mind purified by the

precepts

give with the mind that is purified by

good behavior by good character

because

that purifies the offering even if the

recipient

might be of immoral character

might not be taking the precepts might

be breaking the precepts whatever that

might be

the offering is still valid because it's

been purified by somebody

with wholesome intentions

verified by somebody who has

taken and continues to maintain

the precepts

so before you give it's important to

understand your intention

given

it's important to understand that you

don't want to give with a with a heart

that is

muddled by breaking of the precepts

given by a confused mind given by

an agitated mind given by a restless

mind given by a craving mind take the

precepts determine that you will

maintain the precepts have and hold some

intention and then give

before we finish this off i wanted to

share an interesting story now this

isn't from the dharma but it's an

interesting story nonetheless

and it's a story from actually the

upanishads interestingly enough and it's

i'll just i'll just read it and you just

get a sense of

the ancient indian ethos

at the time of the buddha and before of

what it meant to give and to be generous

once all the descendants of

prajapati that is brahma

that's the mahabrahma

the devas the men and the asuras or the

devas the humans and the asuras

lived with him for some time as students

and one day the devas approached

prajapati and said teach us

and in reply he uttered one syllable da

and then he asked have you understood

and they said

yes we have understood

you said to us

which means in sanskrit which means to

be self-controlled

the instruction given to the devas is

it's a wondrous place being in the sixth

century's heavens and you can get

carried away with pl uh pleasures

you know you might party be partying all

night and all day long and things like

that but

the way to having better peace of mind

more peace of mind and and

having a more wholesome intention is to

be self-controlled be mindful

and regulate the kinds of pleasures that

you're experiencing

then the humans went to pajapati

and said teach us and he said to them

the same syllable da and he asked him

have you understood

and they said yes we have understood to

us you are saying

another word of meaning being generous

providing and offering dhana

and he said yes you have understood so

what's interesting here is for the devas

the instruction is to be self-controlled

to have some level of regulation

and for the humans those who are on the

human plane the way to a mind that is

peaceful a mind that is wholesome

is to be generous is to give and give

with the heart

where it's purified by the precepts

give with a heart that has no

expectation of reward because the reward

itself

is the uplifting mind that arises the

uplifted mind that arises from that

generosity from that

and then finally he says the same thing

to the asuras

and they say what and he asked what have

you understood and they say

which means compassion the way out of

the asura realm is to develop

compassion to develop love and kindness

that was an interesting story from there

but it gives some clarity on the

importance

of generosity the importance of ghana

and when you give with the heart that is

purified by the precepts

it purifies that offering and it

purifies and further uplifts the mind

so that it is stabilized enough for

collectedness

which then gives rise to

a better samadhi practice better

experience of the janas which gives

better clarity and ultimately gives rise

to panya insight

and ultimately the experience of nibana

the first few steps towards nirvana is

maintaining a virtuous mindset

and being generous

that is what the blessed one said

when the sublime one had said that the

teacher said further

now he's speaking in verse he says

when a virtuous person

to an immoral person gives with trusting

heart a gift righteously obtained

placing faith righteously obtained means

that it's something that you have you

haven't stolen it you haven't gotten it

out of immoral means

placing faith that the fruit of action

is great the giver's virtue

is what purifies the offering

when an immoral person to a virtuous

person gives with untrusting heart a

gift

unrighteously obtained

nor places faith

that the fruit of action is great

the receiver's virtue purifies the

offering so even if an immoral person is

giving

if the person who is receiving is of an

uplifted mind

is of a wholesome nature

the nature of their mind will purify

that offering

when an immoral person to an immoral

person gives we're trusting untrusting

heart

a gift unrighteously obtained nor places

faith that the fruit of action is great

neither virtue pure neither's virtue

purifies the offering so

basically even in that process of giving

if it's given from one immoral person to

the other

neither is really uplifted by it

and then when a virtuous person to a

virtuous person gives with trusting

heart a gift righteously obtained

facing faith that the fruit of action is

great

that gift i will say i say they will

come to full fruition

when a passionless person

through a passionless person gives

with trusting heart a gift righteously

obtained

placing faith at the fruit of action is

great

that gift i say is the best of worldly

gifts

when he says a passionless person to a

passionless person gives

he's talking about an arahat he's

talking about one arahat giving to a

another arahat

even though their minds are both

uplifted and so on they don't really

need to further uplift their mind but

that's one of the best gifts that is the

best of worldly gifts as the buddha says

so for the arahat there is no more

coming to being and so when they accept

a gift they're not accepting from that

sense of a person they're not accepting

from a sense of a being

but rather

that gift in itself

is purified that gift or that offering

is purified

just for the

sake that it is an arahat providing to

another arahat however they don't have

any expectations anyway

they won't have an intention that may

this gift provide me benefit because

there is no more coming to being for

them there is no sense of being for them

they have destroyed all idea of a

personhood

they have destroyed all idea of a self

that if that is affected by that

and so their mind is continuously

uplifted

and so even when they're giving

to another arahant there's nothing going

on except that it is a great gift it is

a wonderful gift because

both people are not only virtuous

but they have completely destroyed the

paints and fetters and that therefore

super purifies if you will that gift

that is the end of the suta

[Music]

does anybody have any questions

tillerson i have one question

[Music]

is donna to a

noble person

because the noble person knows the value

of ghana

of more effect it will have more effect

it was told in the sutta

for the reason he had practiced to the

ultimate level

he would gain more

better merits

so in such a situation

even

immoral person

how he he will get more benefits when

company entire sutra says he gets more

benefits

it says immoral person gets more

benefits

at one instance

um if i understand correctly

you're saying that how is it that the

immoral person would benefit from giving

to somebody who is moral is that your

question or to a noble disciples yes yes

yes it one at one stage it was told like

that the other state the other

instance the noble person because he

knows the value of dhana

dhana means merits

or anything and he will get more

merits

who will get more variates whether

immoral person or the noble person

or a person or a noble person

because of giving donna who will get

more merits

okay let me let me make sure i

understand the question correctly so if

a lay person

somebody who has a wholesome intention

gives to a noble one that is to say

either a monastic or in this case

somebody who has an

attainment if they're both

if they're both virtuous obviously then

that purifies the gift that purifies the

offering

and that person is uplifted

but in the case of one who might be

immoral or of not such a great character

and they give to somebody who is a

monastic

that gift is still purified by that

monastic uh or by that noble one or that

that person who has the attainment

because that person the receiver's mind

is uplifted

but i will go a step further and say

because of the fact that they gave

to a noble disciple because of the fact

that they gave to somebody

the very act of giving which is the

intention of giving even if the person

was not virtuous it will purify their

mind

at some point or another that's still

some kind of karmic action at play even

if they're giving to somebody of who the

receiver who is of a noble mind

one who is uplifted

at some point or another it will purify

their mind at some point or another it

will uplift their mind

but what has to be understand started

here is that when the giver is of an

impure mind

they are not the ones that are purifying

the offering the offering or the gift is

purified by the receiver

with that pure mind

[Music]

but more merits are there for the noble

person because he knows the value of

dhana

that is my contention could you please

agree

more merits will be there only for the

receiver

more merits will be there for the

receiver if the noble person knows the

values

okay

well according to the suta it's saying

that there are levels of there are

levels of merit depending upon who you

give to so that seems to that seems to

align with what you're saying

or you're what you're saying seems to

align with what the scoop is more

medicines are there for the noble person

more merits are there for the noble

person well yes

because he is virtuous he's more

virtuous and also he knows the value of

the donna

okay i see what you said

also conveys that's what i want to

convey

okay

well i think uh i think here uh when

somebody receives with uh gratitude or

when a noble person receives

i think the merit really uh the

importance of the merit is rarely with

the

with the with the giver more than the

receiver in this case because the

receiver if it's a noble disciple if

it's a monastic they're receiving on

behalf of the sangha

and so the merit that has been been

generated from giving to the sangha

really goes to the receiver because all

they're doing is repaying the debt of

dhamma to them

thank you that is okay

thank you

you're welcome

nelson

yes

[Music]

what sort of sprung to mind for me at

the moment is

every time that i

because my wife and i just had a baby so

coming to listen to a talk involves me

asking a question or can i go and listen

to this talk so every time my wife says

hey of course no problem is that that's

the form of dhana isn't it in some ways

like she's giving me like the gift of

access to dharma she's giving her

she's giving you permission to listen

yes yes we're giving me permission to

leave her to look after the baby i guess

but she's giving me permission she's

given me permission in some ways isn't

she

to listen to dharma is that correct

yeah she she i mean you she has she has

basically uh said go ahead and listen to

the dhamma and you know she has an

uplifted mind because of that and you

have an uplifted mind because of that

okay that in itself is a reward really

an uplifted mind

and then once you have that uplifted

mind you can use that for further

practice

hello dalton

hello

what does it mean

when the gif when it says the gift is

purified of what is the gift purified is

it that

all the merit that potentially comes

through giving it comes to to full

effect

right that's basically it so when the

gift is purified it's not like it's

purifying the gift itself but it's

purifying the mind whether it's of the

receiver or of the giver so in other

words if the

the receiver is of a pure mind has

wholesome intentions

it purifies that person but it also

purifies

the giver in some way because

the action of giving itself the

intention of giving itself will

ultimately uplift their mind at some

point or another so the very act of

giving or the very act of receiving so

if somebody is of an immoral nature

and they give to somebody who is

of an immoral nature as well neither of

them have an uplifted mind so it doesn't

really purify it but if any one of those

two or both

are

of an uplifted mind

then or of a pure mind then when they

say that the offering is purified it's

really about purification or further

purification of the mind

yeah okay thank you

hello dylson

hello

if there's a um

like a small local temple or hermitage

that only has one monk

and you give a gift are you giving to

the sangha are you giving to that one

monk who's there

you're giving to the sangha

the monk or the monastic is

representation of the sangha so when you

give you give with the idea that you're

giving to the sangha

even if it benefits that monastic

personally

nelson

um yes

i think there is a suta where it's

mentioned that one should be giving with

both hands

but of course in these modern days

one

writes a check or one

uses paypal or whatever

so i've always been wondering about

how that

effect

would be

maybe less

than

being able to give with one not one's

own

hands that's a good question and i i'll

say you know from my experience in asia

i think this is

one thing is it's a cultural thing

it's a sign of respect like when i was

in cambodia

one of the things is when they give

money to anybody

they give it with both hands

in any case they give it with both hands

or they'll give it like this

as a sign of as a sign of respect

so it's really more of showing the

reverence that you know here is maidana

and you know please accept it on behalf

of the sangha

when you're giving to a monastic or even

if you're offering it to another person

you give it with both hands and so it's

just representing that action is

representing your intention which is

wholesome

so whenever you give with uh

paypal or

bitcoin or whatever it might be

if your intention is wholesome

that's really what

at least that's how i understand it

um hello if i may i have another

question that's not related to donna

sure

it's about

thank you it's about um

about joy

in the third ayathana in the uh second

yes you're talking about the second

consciousness

yes

most of the time it's

translated as empathetic joy

you also use that

but

i i wonder if that empathetic comes not

so much from the suttas but from other

traditions or uh

maybe philosophies behind that and if

it's really empathetic joy or if it's

just joy i had this discussion just

today in a meeting with a trim friend

and

we wondered

what's more correct just only joy or

empathetic joy

i had this discussion with monty as well

while i've been here and

this is how i would clarify it

uh mudita that's really the pali word

mudita which actually just means

you know it is sometimes sympathetic joy

or sometimes empathetic joy but i would

say when you are

dealing with people when you are out and

about in your daily life that empathetic

joy is the joy you experience when

somebody has a wholesome

celebration like some kind of wholesome

success

when somebody graduates or somebody gets

married you immediately feel happy for

them you feel

joyful for them when somebody uh has uh

you know has given birth to a baby you

feel happy for them

uh so within let's say day-to-day life

that experience of joy is just being

happy for that person but the quality of

that joy within the meditation is just

that content joy it's a it's it is joy

but it's

in my experience a softer kind of joy

than you would experience let's say with

pity

which is a little more energetic and

bubbly

yeah

so uh the rendering of the word

depends a bit on if one is uh in that

formal in that meditative state or in

daily life

yeah because the reason is it's kind of

difficult to say well who are you being

happy for uh while you're in

in that experience of mudita

and that's understandable i mean if it

helps to be able to be

uh joyful by thinking about a person uh

then that's kind of empathetic joy but

i think what's more important in the

meditation is to have the quality of the

joy rather than just the

trying to fight figure out how to find

that joy having the joy in itself

uh is more than enough

yeah okay thank you very much

uh mr elsa

yes

uh sir

giving to a viparshna center is it like

giving to the sangha

yes it's still giving it's still giving

to the sangha because oh well if there

are monastics there yes exactly

no uh a vipassana center where lay

people come to do courses with

vibrational courses meditation courses

are they sangha for the

time they remain at the center

the are the fruits the same as giving to

the sangha monastics or

i would say no

you're just giving to lay people

i haven't

can i ask

i have to

the same thing okay uh

told in the upanishads also that is why

am referring again

so what do you uh what is your

what is

more when compared to the person who is

giving

this is what referred in the one of the

upanishads

instead of sangha but the question

question is did the buddha receive the

merit or did sujata receive the merit

buddha received buddha knows the value

of dhana that is why he got

enlightenment afterwards

this is what mentioned in one of the

upanishads

okay i see you're talking about the

upanishads maybe i made a mistake by

bringing up the upanishads because

outside of that whole understanding of

the upanishads

their understanding of buddhism

is different because they have a

different view

they have a view of atman and brahman

the reason i brought up the upanishads

was because it's a nice story from

ancient india about the valley of

generosity but

that doesn't validate the fact that the

upanishads have any kind of say within

buddhism because it's a completely

different philosophy it's a differently

it's a completely different viewpoint

but the idea that the buddha was the one

who received the merit i don't think

that makes sense it's fujiata who

received the merit

yes thank you

uh i had a question

would you have some suggestions about

like uh recollecting um

generosity especially

in the context of children because that

would interest me very much

in the context of children how do you

mean uh for example when

when i bring my son to bed after we we

tried to do these like meta-like

exercises of sending love bubbles and

things like that i wonder if you have

any suggestions of doing something

similar with generosity recollecting

generous thoughts or things that it was

done during the day something like along

those lines

i think that's a wonderful practice

because uh that really uplifts the mind

when you think about i mean that's

really why you do the precepts that's

really why you are generous one it

really

naturally uplifts the mind but it can be

a great gateway to loving kindness for

yourself and for others when you think

about things that you're grateful for

when you think about the things that

you've done in the past that are

wholesome

or when you think about the times you

were generous and it uplifts the mind

it's a great igniter for loving kindness

and then continuing that loving kindness

in your practice

thank you

i'm not sure i was raising my hand

but i wanted to ask you one question

when you have two um

let's put it to you this way if you have

there's a elderly project in um

near alastair in mumbai and

these people have nowhere to go they're

deathly poor very very poor

and they have no support you know the

government has nothing for them

and if one of them

was to help another one and they were

hindu

um you know isn't this

giving its

self isn't the giving itself a helping

to each other isn't that an uplifted act

oh absolutely yes and is there some kind

of purification going on when someone

steps out of line from the way people

are being treated and helps another

person in

some place like that you know and

there's also a terrible terrible

situation with a lack of housing right

now and many many people on the street

definitely deathly poor you know and so

when someone makes an effort that they

don't normally make in in the community

to help another one make have enough

food you see things like that so i can't

i can't see where both of the people are

from an immoral background and both of

them are desperate

and they do this act of giving itself to

it to each other that becomes an

uplifted act and there's purification

involved in that to some extent

maybe you can say the lowest

on the rack

if you want to

but they're both getting very happy

you know and yeah the other thing i

think it's about the yeah okay

go ahead go ahead

i think it's really about the it's

really about the act of giving itself

definitely but uh if if somebody was

poor and still was giving if somebody

that that act itself is is being

being an act of generosity to somebody

whatever little you can give that still

uplifts the mind so my contention there

if it's between two immoral people

the

the act of giving itself

will come to fruition at some point in

time but it doesn't necessarily update

their mind in that moment it's the karma

of giving that will still have some kind

of effect maybe in the next moment maybe

in a couple of moments maybe in another

lifetime whatever it might be

yeah

but helping each other i think the movie

i can't get out of my mind in this whole

subject is k-packs do you know the movie

k-pacs

it was where an alien an alien from mars

came and they were going to put him in a

they actually did they chucked him into

bellevue in new york

and then he the doctors didn't know how

to treat him and while he was there he

integrated all the patients by telling

one to help another do the laundry and

you help her make her bed and all of a

sudden because they had every had

something to do and someone to help all

of a sudden everyone was cured in the

whole world which irritated doctors no

end

okay also i just wanted to note

something if you're giving a check

to the song and you're sending it um sil

what you need to do is find a two-handed

uh a two-handed emoji to go with it

so that you're you're giving two hands

like this as you're that's a great idea

emoji that's what some of my students

started doing and um the other thing

about empathetic joy

or um

yeah empathetic joy and sympathetic joy

is what happened to the word altruism

because the translation was altruistic

meaning the strange experience

of uh not being involved with another

person and

suddenly that you hear the person just

got into school or got you know passed

an exam and you feel this uplifted

feeling that that's what i think they're

talking about

and i had a few students that really

claimed that happened

and it happened to me when i

went through that of of having this

unusual experience not understanding

what it was why am i so happy this

person i don't even know and seek a

happy you know succeeded

and i began to think maybe there's

something to this altruism

so altruistic is the other word the old

word and some people like it some people

want to call this just regular joy a

different level of it

um yeah

and go either way yeah

i'm glad you brought that up yeah

because altruistic joy is a great uh a

great uh translation too because it

doesn't have to be a person that you

know it could be just somebody a

stranger you hear oh you know they had

something great happening in their life

and you have that joy for them that's

the kind of joy that is being

experienced in daily life that's that's

the mudita

uh but then the quality of it is

experienced in the meditation yeah

i really liked your talk very nice very

clear thank you thank you thank you

hi dylsen um i have a second question

how do you know how much to give like

what is like giving too much

that's a very good question you know

there is a there's a friend of mine here

who was talking about it and uh

his uh

his brother asked the same question of

him like how much to give and he said

give until it hurts just a little bit

that was an interesting way of saying it

because it's basically

you are giving with an open heart and

you're giving

not to the extent that you go bankrupt

or you go in debt and things like that

but you give a little extra something

that you feel uh

you know will benefit the other person

thank you

[Music]

mark

i uh

i was on a retreat once and uh

someone asked the same question

and

the answer that was given was

by a physician

because you can

give too much medication as well as too

little

so his uh

his answers was that it was better

to give too much

than too little

so i just wanted to share that thank you

for your talk today it's been wonderful

thank you

[Music]

so perhaps uh people have any other

questions like questions about practice

i think nelson could take a few of those

if anybody has something

and i did find the two-handed emoji on

zoom if you

next time

i put it in the chat so take it away

jills

yeah does anybody have any questions

about the practice or

anything they've read in the supers

whatever it might be i think

practice-based questions would be great

because it'll really help you

yes

uh lately i have um

had quite a few like problems so i've

been trying to like focus

a lot of uh the meta like to work

towards myself but

i'm wondering

is it possible to combine that with um

making actual like progress in the

meditation as well you know i'm trying

to make it really like sincere

and make the strength of the meta like

the object you know almost to like

overturn some of the well uproot some of

the defilements are like quite an

abundance in my heart i'm wondering if

you could maybe comment on that please

well i want to caution you about trying

too hard because if you're going to you

know concentrate your mind on the method

you're going to start to see

that you're becoming one pointed that

method and then you're going to start to

see that you're suppressing the mind and

you might cause yourself

pain uh in the head and things like that

so i want to caution you about that let

the method flow wherever it's going to

flow whether it's to yourself

or to a spiritual friend in particular

or if you're radiating in all directions

just do that

the defilements will go when they go you

know if you make so much of an effort to

let go of the defilements

and what you're actually doing is you're

having longing which is another way of

saying craving

and you have an aversion to what's

really happening

okay

thank you

i have a question delson

yes

i've been doing um forgiveness

meditation for some weeks now

and

yes i can remember things i did wrong or

i hurt people

but

there's nothing really big coming up and

i wonder how long to do this it feels

good to do it but

i'm not sure

yeah

the the thing about forgiveness practice

is it's a great way to

kind of supercharge your loving kindness

there comes a point after you're doing

your forgiveness practice that you feel

just naturally uplifted you feel

naturally light

you feel like whatever blockage that

might be to radiating the method to a

spiritual friend

goes away

when your mind intuits that you know

i've done enough forgiveness everybody

that seems to have come in

having to be forgiven uh is forgiven and

you forgive yourself and you feel like

you've been forgiven and your mind will

say okay it's time to go back to the

practice

so you should ask your intuition and see

does it feel that way

okay thank you very much

i have a question

yes

when you're radiating in the different

directions does it matter which order

you radiate in like first and

you know like

usually i'll do front and in the back

and then

east west and then um

up and down at the end or can you do i

mean does it matter

which how you do that which order you do

that in

no it doesn't matter uh what really

matters is when you're radiating not to

push

so you have an intention of one

direction and you just watch the flow of

the meta or the compassion or whatever

it might be

going in that direction and the next

direction and so on so

the the sequence of directions doesn't

really matter at all

okay

thank you

uh delson i i do have another question i

do apologize if anybody else was wanting

to jump in

again

with me saying earlier on that we've

just had a child so like obviously

time's like quite limited and but but

actually sometimes now i'm getting maybe

an hour to myself in the morning

um i i have quite a strong like like for

walking meditation like is it

advisable to try and just sit for an

hour as opposed to maybe try and break

that into a half an hour sit and a half

an hour walk because i find that walking

meditation really does help me take

the practice into daily life

where obviously it feels like you can

make more

progress in some ways so sitting

practice

yeah i i would incline towards walk uh

sorry towards uh sitting for one hour

rather than breaking that up between

walking and sitting because you want

that time you really want as much time

as you can

to keep the mind settled while it's in

sitting meditation

i mean no doubt there is great benefit

in walking meditation as you just said

which is you know you are able to infuse

loving kindness with whatever it is

you're doing it's a great practice to do

that so my suggestion there would be

uh do the do the sitting practice for

one hour

because you want you want as much time

as possible to do the sitting and then

when you're doing whatever else you're

doing infuse it with loving kindness

uh you know it's just it's just it

doesn't just have to be walking

meditation if you're

taking a shower have loving kindness

you're eating breakfast how loving

kindness you're driving your car have a

living

you're taking the bus have loving

kindness whatever it is you're doing you

are the computer

of loving kindness

if you can smile you can meditate on the

goal

thank you i was beautiful answer thank

you very much

uh um

i have a follow-up question to that or

maybe more of a comment

so um i remember the sutta the buddha

saying of course it's the buddha who

says this um

that the the body posture doesn't matter

the equality of the state he's in is the

same

doesn't matter which which jhana or

ayatana that is

and from my experience um also

of course i respect your suggestion and

your recommendation but from my my

experience it's like a walking

meditation can be

can have the same quality and be as deep

as a sitting meditation of course not to

the extent that you have

cessation while walking but up to the uh

seventh genre it's is walking walking

meditation can be as

half the same quality like sitting

meditation

would you agree

so about that uh you know it's quite

possible somebody can have an experience

with cessation while walking because

i've heard somebody had cessation while

they were eating their food they

suddenly just went into cessation

because their mind was so

pure that it let go so

uh to that point yes it can happen uh

but uh the reason i'm saying sitting is

because there's a tendency while you're

walking with your eyes open obviously

uh to you for you to get

easily distracted

uh you know you might look here and

there and start to go into a flow of

different kinds of thoughts

i mean granted yes you can still have

that level of depth in terms of the

meditation while you're walking but it

really depends on the individual so as a

general recommendation as a general

suggestion

i would say

that you should have some time to sit if

you had the choice between sitting and

walking

okay yeah yeah do the walking i'm sorry

do the sitting

and the walking

you can do at later stage but really you

want that time to sit to really settle

the mind because you have one less sense

input

that you have to deal with

if you're walking you have your eyes

open and there's a tendency there can be

a tendency to get more distracted

and with your eyes closed while you're

sitting so it just makes it easier

yeah yeah okay that makes sense thank

you yeah

and i think you would not be able to

quiet down the physical formations while

walking

that is true you would still have

physical formations there would still be

and whereas if you're sitting you have

the ability to tranquilize them

when you get to the fourth genre

completely

and that really and that

the other thing about that is if you

have a certain level of experience

there are people as i said who just

doing something like washing the dishes

or eating their food or something

suddenly going to cessation

if your mind is clear enough and you you

have the experience

you could experience up to the level of

nothingness and so on

while you're walking it's like your

entire body you don't have any awareness

of the body

it's like as if you're floating and the

only contact you have is the feet

when they touch the ground

unless you're levitating and that's a

different story but

if your feet are on the ground

you

will feel the contact there will still

be some contact which is the body leaf

yeah mark yeah i i would think

it would be also very important to the

location of where you're walking for the

purpose of a uh

what could be called a situational

awareness you know you've got traffic

you've got other people

you've got things going on

your own safety is

is could be important in that process so

that

the choice of location for the walking

would be very important so that you

would have the serenity as well as the

safety

to go into whatever level is appropriate

and that you could use in your practice

yeah that's a very practical point i

mean it's much easier to be for example

here in damascus to do walking because

you don't have to take you know you

don't have to take into account traffic

and things like that

than it is for when you're walking down

the street and you have to cross traffic

that's a very good point so

uh the setting also matters where you're

walking

thank you

i i want to say i just want to say that

we have had some men

over the years i think um that mark and

hunter can remember a certain red-headed

person who might be in the room right

now who just could not stop walking and

needed to walk it off and that is the

first step of stealing the formation

when you're working with men that are

hyper you have to let them walk if they

prefer the walking instead of sitting i

think you'd agree with that

and then what happens is they get to a

point

where they've walked it off enough and

then it's time to sit and when they come

back and sit everything calms down you

know pretty well and it can go into a

sitting but if you try to sit before you

walk if you come home from work and

you're really you know oh gosh this

whole day was like this okay you you

some men just really want to do it i

haven't i've haven't found a woman yet

that really wanted to walk as hard as

some of the men but it happens you know

that's that's a very good point yeah

yeah yeah

that's a very good point because

sometimes i also will recommend if

people feel agitated or they're feeling

restless while they're sitting

they just need some activity in the in

the form of walking or even just running

just to just to expend that extra energy

it's worth the time too to take the time

in the beginning of the retreat to take

one day or two days to check everyone's

posture and to to take the time to find

out what they prefer in their first uh

you know interview

and then uh to watch make sure they're

trained for walking looking six feet

ahead or eight feet ahead at the ground

and not taking a nature walk because

there's training involved in walking

meditation it's not something you just

say go take a walk

and we've all had it i know mark and

andre and i have had it or when

hi irwin

i know irwin really needed to walk

you know and um

maybe kick a tree

i was just trying really hard most of

the time so

irwin i hope you don't kick trees

anymore there might be some tree davis

in there you don't want it disturbed so

yeah well i apologize to them

i accepted

um delson

before before i

found out about swim i used to do a lot

of concentration meditation i've i've

been doing twin for two for a few years

but i still have a habit of like forcing

and trying too hard and you know i'm

getting better at it but some of you had

any advice

yeah you know that's interesting

somebody asked the question like what

are the two things that you see that are

really uh very common among people uh

when it comes to challenges of

meditation and one is definitely trying

too hard and the other is self

acceptance

in other words you know don't be so hard

on yourself don't try to set

such expectations on yourself

if you're enjoying the meditation if

you're enjoying the process then that

means the meditation is working

so if your mind is light

your mind will be clear if you're

if you try too hard your mind you will

see will start to have some restlessness

in the the pressure of the concentration

practice the pressure of trying too hard

brings about a lot of mental energy and

that mental energy manifests

in the form of restlessness

whenever you sit down for meditation

have a

kinder and softer approach a much more

gentle approach and just have the

attitude of let's see what comes up

you know if you have that kind of an

attitude and then just keep observing

your whole your whole

goal here or your let's say the whole

point or the whole effort in the

practice is

to just observe how mind's attention

moves and then when you see that it's

off its object of meditation

just six are every time you six are you

purify your mind and you bring your

mindfulness much you make your

mindfulness much sharper which means now

you'll be even more collected

so it is a

feedback loop that helps

um helps you to sharpen your mindfulness

helps you to sharpen your collectiveness

but if you try too hard from the

beginning what you're going to find is

it's going to be difficult for you to

even recognize that you are restless or

that you are not mindful and it will be

difficult for you to then 6-hour that

process because it takes more time

thanks uh one of the things that happens

is like i'm

i'm trying to let myself be

comfortable feeling relaxed because it

sort of it almost feels like wrong a

little bit to like not be concentrating

and then so

sometimes i'm like i'm getting like like

i think i'm like being relaxed within

like after the meditation like i have a

headache like oh i actually was like

concentrating too hard i didn't notice

it when i was in the meditation though

so when it comes to having a relaxed

feeling

uh there's a couple of ways to

understand that if you see

well first of all there's nothing

there's nothing wrong with relaxing i

mean everybody in this world wants to

relax

and to feel guilty of uh wanting to

relax you know that's

that you have to let go of that's that

would be something that you don't need

more of you know

we already have a lot of people who are

tense in the world and creating all

kinds of crazy situations because they

have so much tension and

so on so

it's actually a good thing to relax it's

a good thing to tranquilize uh the

bodily formations

it's a good thing to become relaxed and

collected because of that relaxation

one way of understanding you know what

is relaxed feel like

is you know what relax feels like i mean

when you tense up your your fist

and you just let that go so when you

recognize that there's some tension

going on you recognize that there's some

restlessness going

that is a point of tension that you have

to just let go of so you recognize it

you release your awareness from it and

you just relax and it relaxes just

letting it go um i had somebody a friend

of mine who was talking about this and

he had an interesting way of

discussing this and that was

it's like when you when you take your

finger and you look at your finger

your mind becomes super fixed on that

finger and you lose

complete awareness of what's happening

outside of just looking at your finger

the relaxed step is

going from just looking at the finger to

just looking at everything it's like

you're expanding your vision if

you're expanding your sense of sight

well while your eyes are open but in the

meditation

it's like you're just expanding your

awareness you're opening up your

awareness when you do

so if you feel

when in the practice that the mind

becomes constricted and it's just trying

too hard or it's trying to just stay

with this object of meditation that's

when you know that you know you have to

pull back

you have to make less effort you have to

relax

and just watch how mind becomes

collected because of the right causes

and conditions that come into play to

give that give rise to that collective

thank you

hey nelson i have a question that might

seem off track from this but in a way

it's not i guess i

because it all has to do with peace of

mind and when you meditate you know

getting rid of those crazy thoughts and

stuff and

but um

family or all of them have this fear of

the month of october

because there have been a couple of

deaths in our family by younger people

and you know

and you know like my dad was he was in

his 30s and my niece my

my sister's daughter

she was also in her 30s you know but in

any case so everybody you know we have

this little uneasiness about the month

of october so i don't know

i guess it's a superstition

you know so it's something to be six

hard

you know it's just that underlying thing

that's there in the month of october

your input would be on something like

that

yeah there's a tendency for the mind to

make certain kind of correlations and

connections

but there's no causality there it's just

a correlation it's just that okay that

happens in the month of october but

there's no real truth to that there's no

real you know causation based on that so

my my immediate uh

advice there would be to six r that let

go of that idea because this

thing like it's a form of clinging to

rights and rituals when you think about

superstitions and things like that

because what it's saying is

on the flip side of that what it's

saying is for example you know you think

that you have a lucky sock or you you

you you know carry around a four-leaf

clover and somehow that's going to

change your fortunes or that psalm are

you going to change your luck

that is in violation of the

understanding of the law of causation

because what you're saying is you're

going beyond the law of causation to say

that if i just do this then you know

all that karma and everything else won't

matter

in other words it is effort

it is intention

mental effort verbal effort

uh physical effort whatever it might be

it is that action that gives rise to the

karma so people who seem to be

very well to do or wealthy and things

like that and it seems like you know

they either just inherited

inherited it or they just you know

didn't do a lot of work doesn't mean

that in that particular life it it

doesn't mean that they just got it out

of nowhere it means that in a previous

life

they had generosity

they had the purity of mind and they

were always keeping the precepts

and so because of that it it generated

into a more wholesome state of mind

whether it's in this particular life or

in the next life

you have to understand it that any kind

of superstition like that would be a

form of clinging to a specific kind of

view related to rights and rituals and

just let that go by 6r okay well that

makes it yeah yeah okay

if i could just convince them

you know my sisters too

yeah well that'd be that's great thank

you

welcome

nelson i wanted to ask you one question

the um

let me see

was um

just it was like about relaxing you know

and feeling and stuff like that do you

think that there was any instruction by

the buddha to actually do anything

personally in the meditation or would

you say that

uh it was a direction for watching

and observing

primarily

so yeah that's that's always been that's

always been my own emphasis in teaching

is whenever i have a retreat or whenever

i tell students is

there's two things you do just observe

and six are and by the end of the

retreat you're gonna get tired of me

saying the same thing over and over and

over again but it's important to know

you're just being aware of what's going

on with your mind's attention everything

else will take care of itself because of

light intention of loving kindness here

because you're generating the experience

and so on anything beyond that except

for the six hours then that's an

experience of trying too hard making too

much of an effort the observing which is

the right mindfulness the mindfulness

that we talk about is the bare awareness

of what is arising and passing away in

reference to your attention

if you direct your attention to

something

and or rather you're saying that the

attention can be controlled

then now you're making too much effort

now you're putting the sense of self

there now you're putting the sense of

making it personal

but if you just see the attention itself

as being impersonal and you're observing

how the attention moves and then nudging

it along with the six r's and so on then

it naturally gives rise to

right collectedness to samadhi

yeah

um and also say uh

you know in india we deal an awful lot

with

one point concentration and having them

come over to experiment and find out

uh what

the tranquil wisdom insight meditation

is actually all about

and um

in going to the breathing instructions

if you look at the breathing

instructions there's not anything here

at all

from section 18 through

you know the dyads of the whole thing

that says do something it says

experience something it says obs you

know the instructions to observe but

it's just talking about experiencing so

there really isn't anything it says to

actually do

and being a being a watcher is all it's

really asking us to do is to watch right

rising and passing away the phenomena

yeah

yeah right exactly

that's why it's such an easy easy

practice that's why it's so effective

because you are training yourself by

watching how the mind's attention is

moving

the mind is teaching itself when it does

that oh yeah if you if you try to

control the situation

uh that's where things get haywire

basically it just it just creates

more hindrances

and it brings up more personalization

when especially when you have one point

of concentration because they're they're

trying to direct the attention somewhere

and then that causes not only just pain

in the head but it also causes pain in

daily life because now you see that you

suppress the hindrances

and then when you come out of it the

hindrances come back up you know the

metaphor i use is like it's like you

have a beach ball and you put it under

the water and you suppress it and then

you let go and it comes back with full

force and you don't know what to do with

that

exactly

and the other thing that i found over

here was that if i talk to someone about

uh you know the mindfulness being an

observation and not concentration i keep

saying it's not concentration instead we

started saying it's a refined uh it's a

redefined

retuned form of concentration with

specifics and then they settled down

you know but they get so upset if you

say that i've been concentrating you

know for 15 20 years and i i have to do

this you know and then they think don't

you can't take concentration away i'm

not taking it away i'm refining it and

retuning it and then they settle down

it's just kind of fun yeah

that's the that's the sneakiness of uh i

try

there was one other thing if you're if

your people are afraid for october you'd

go and read you know read the um the

suta mn 131 the bhararakatasuta

and give up the past for the month of

october and give up the future worry and

the concern for the past and take trika

turn maybe take a turn living in the

present time just as a little crystal

ball a crystal carriage carrying you

through the month of october the kids

will love the story they do here anyway

to just be able to not think about covid

forget what happened in the past let go

of all of the grief and things that

we've dealt with over here and

it's still going on here it's not the

same as in the states at all you know

yeah but

131 is really helpful

uh to

look at the present time

and um they're specific in the pros in

that one poetry if you can i don't know

if you have the book it's really the

short

poem that is the one fine night

the 1999 you're talking about uh it's um

one that's right yeah wait a minute it's

it's uh what is that like this one's

right here

i didn't know if you had the book

sitting there let not a person revive

the past or on the future hold us hopes

for the past has been left behind and

the future has not been reached

instead with insight let him see each

presently arisen state

and let him know it and be sure of it

invincibly and unshakably that this pure

mind this this clear mind really exists

and just keep relaxing and watch

and it gets fun it gets really fun

thank you wonderful thank you for that

nelson

yes um

yeah

you talked about um just observing the

movement of the mind

and

i was wondering

how the object of meditation

fits in with that particular

yeah there is some level of right effort

which is to say

what you're doing is you're observing

how mind's attention moves so that's the

mindfulness part of it the initial

application of thought which is to

ignite the loving kindness to

intentionalize the loving kindness that

then is your object of meditation

and you are

you're observing the object of

meditation and then you're observing

unless in the sense you're observing the

loving kindness you're observing the

flow of love and kindness your spiritual

friend or in radiating or whatever it

might be

and then while in that process of

observation the mind might get detracted

from its object it might just go to

somewhere else so in that process of

observing your mind is open enough to be

able to catch

that

there has been a distraction that there

has been a hindrance

really the the starting point is

observing but in the way of observing

where the observation itself itself

or the attention itself

strengthens the collectedness of mind so

the more you're able to observe the

loving kindness so you bring it up in

the beginning that's the first channel

you bring it up with the intention of

loving kindness with a verbalization or

whatever it might be but once you have

then you're just watching it and then

you're just observing it and

eventually the mind becomes collected

the more you observe it so the two

things that you're doing really are the

observation which is the mindfulness of

that

object and the second is the six r's the

right effort

when you see the mind is distracted you

let go

of that distraction uh so you recognize

it you let go you relax and then you

smile to uplift the mind and you come

back so there is that right effort of

coming back to observing the object of

because um in the instructions from

banky my understanding is that there

always is an odd object of meditation

yeah

yeah whether it's loving kindness

compassion or any of the brahmaviharas

or quiet mind there is still an object

there that you're just observing

and the object's um purpose is

when the mind drifts

then you

being collected by returning to the

object

i just wanted to clarify that because

what you were saying was just observe

but there is always kind of a touchstone

for the observation yes

that's a very good that's a very good

addition to it because the whole point

of the as you just said the whole point

of the object is to keep the mind tied

to something so the way i kind of look

at it is like the it's like a a rock

that uh is the string is tied to it and

it's like a balloon so it might go away

from its object but then it comes back

with the six hour process

um and so when we talk about the

unification of mind for example the

ekagata that said in pali it's really

that the mind or the attention is no

longer scattered by it so even if

it gets

if it gets askew if it gets detracted

there is something to return to which is

the object i said yeah okay

i was looking for the anchor anchor you

see the anchor

in the one point concentration got

really serious because you had to tie

yourself to it and fix on it and think

what i've run into

delson is people come actually think

that that object is going to give them

the answer to nibana it's very serious

we actually ran in bunty and i ran into

a woman in australia and i had asked him

the question in the morning does it ever

occur

for a breathing meditation to believe

that the breath is so important if i

don't pay attention to it that i can't

breathe and then that day

one in the morning one in the afternoon

two 40-year-old women came in and said

we cannot do mental if we do not pay

attention to our breaths we will not be

able to breathe and they actually

believed it i was shocked

and then that's really

it's fascinating

no i mean yeah and that's like the

extreme form of one pointed

concentration because the whole point of

one point of concentration is

i become the meditation object itself

so my my existence

my personality is now tied to the object

of meditation which happens in yoga

which is the

the the unification or the union of the

atman with the brahman

that's a very extreme form of that yeah

but we're different with our position we

actually enter we we had a we had a

retreat in 2017 for 35 people in pohang

and malaysia and we spent three days

trying to determine if there were laws

for meditation and one of those laws

what's what is the law that is absolute

concerning an object in meditation

so you have to ask the question why do

all meditations seem to have an object

of meditation and nelson you said it

it's like it's ice it's like an anchor i

draw a picture of an anchor with a boat

and a harbor and it can't float away so

now it's safe to go to bed for the night

but you're always going to be in that

vicinity but you can't you know if we

say timey to it there it's buying into

the one point concentration you have to

be careful with that one and

and because it and the other thing is

you can't blame a teacher for this you

can't if you're sitting over here these

teachers are in front of 125 people or

try try the big the big one at 5 000

people and a teacher is teaching at

something there's 5 000 brains in front

of you and you say something even when

gowenka said it i read listen to many of

his talks are just fine okay

but but

okay he's giving instruction maybe the

right way on a subject to 5 000 people

and how do each brain hear that

you can't go around and figure that out

you see

treats it's a timely thing for the

teacher yeah

yeah

i think i think the object of meditation

is important obviously for the

meditation i mean the whole definition

of meditation is

that you have something that the mind is

thinking about i mean the very very

general basic definition

meditation

hmm we seem to have lost delson

he's from meditation which is brought up

[Music]

what i was saying is the the the whole

point about the meditation i mean the

general definition of meditation is that

the mind as something that it collects

itself around so to speak the attention

is collected around something

but

the whole point here is to see that you

don't become your object of meditation

you

[Music]

and

even the intention of loving kindness

even the intention of compassion is not

your intention and this might this might

go over some people's heads but when you

get deeper and deeper into the practice

you see that even intention

is impersonal and you don't take the

jhana you don't take the meditation

personally it's all happening because of

the right causes and conditions coming

together

so the observation helps to keep that

distance of self

in that process

and the 6r helps to keep the mind

let's say collected or

unified not to the extent of becoming it

but unified as a way of keeping the mind

clear

the whole point is to bring the mind to

a level of clarity and depth so that

insight can arise

because if you become one one pointed

and you suppress as i was saying you not

only suppress the mind and the

hindrances but you suppress the

opportunity for any kind of insights to

arise naturally

thank you nelson uh let me jump in here

we uh we have been doing some interviews

with delson over the last week or so

and i'm gonna make some videos out of

all those things and we get into some

really deep dharma stuff

we get into some

upcoming neuroscience research that

delsin has participated in

and

we talk about dependent origination we

talk about narota cessation i mean you

name it we're getting into it

and the first video where bill nelson

introduces himself and his background

and gives us a thumbnail sketch of the

jonas and so on

that's going to come out tomorrow at 1

p.m same time we started this video here

and i'm just putting

[Music]

i am putting that in the chat so that

you can get a link to that but tomorrow

at 1 pm uh that will be our first

release of these interviews and there

should be a number of them to follow

and of course we will have a recording

of this zoom call up as well so

let's take a few more questions and uh i

think we're getting pretty long here

uh anybody else got a few more for one

yeah i just wanted to uh

offer you know kind of like a metaphor

for

really deep practice

uh in the sense of

looking of a you had the balloon in the

water and it made me think of like a uh

very small bubble at the bottom of a

swimming pool

where consciousness is

coming into formation

and as the bubble rises it gets

larger and larger and larger and it's

and it's easier and easier to see

and so in the process of practice we're

seeing these large thought bubbles take

place and as the sensitivity grows

you see them

at a earlier earlier level or a smaller

level and so the the practice becomes

watching those

formations maybe at a tiny level and

then maybe six arring at that time but

the

the metaphor of the bubble

in the pool was is one that people can

relate to and i i find it very useful i

wanted to share that that is very useful

thank you for that and then there comes

a point when there are no bubbles at all

and that's the cessation

oh you went on mute you went on mute

there hey please yes that's true

any other questions

yeah i have another question um

thank you about

the english terms of like unification

of mind or collectedness

so i always wondered since

uh and and on the other side also the

sutas we hear uh the mind being

scattered uh outwardly or externally

this

collectedness or

unification

or scatteredness it implies that there

is something that can be at

different places at the same time

but like isn't it that mind's attention

uh can only be with one thing at a time

there is nothing that can be collected

unified because there is only one thing

at a time

and uh

and also

that doesn't mean that it's more like

calming i'm sorry to interrupt but my

internet just went down for a second so

i didn't hear the whole flow of the

question can you please

do it again it's

perfect that's perfect yeah it's about

you mentioned it ekagata

and in english we we say collectedness

mostly we don't use concentration of

course but we have collectedness or

unification but actually there isn't

anything that is that can be scattered

or unified because mind's attention can

only be

with one thing at a time

so is

is isn't it kind of misleading to to to

to think of it as something that can be

collected or unified

and isn't it more uh

proper more more um

useful to think of it like calming

calming down or becoming tranquil like

my the movement of mind's attention is

calming down

i like that interpretation that's a very

good interpretation because you're right

the attention can only go to one object

at a time

it just feels like the mind is scattered

it just feels like the attention is

scattered but what you're really doing

is you're redirecting the attention back

to its object so

i like that idea of tranquilizing and

relaxing because then that's

just calming down

the the mental energy of the

distractedness and then bringing it back

that's a good way of putting it i think

it helps other people understand as well

yeah yeah okay thank you

i i think uh it also depends on when you

look

uh at the term ekagata how you break it

up uh aika means one but ekaga is

tranquility

right

and calmness yeah yeah okay thank you

i always wanted to ask that question

uh david i have a question for you can i

ask you a question

i don't

i know you're the one person that might

know but delson might know too what is

the suta about scattered internally or

externally do you remember dawson

all right

yeah i know what you're talking about

tonight

that's what well

that's the suit it explains what it

means to be scattered externally is that

your mind won't stay in and in watching

see

when

when you haven't you're sitting you're

sitting here okay and you're

watching here with the peripheral vision

inside and then you can't stay there and

you keep going outside of this boundary

outside towards

towards hindrances and other thoughts

and everything that's a scattered mind

externally but i can't remember david

what did it say about the scattered mind

internally remember we used to do that

suit a lot

done it a lot

is that the upper class 128 no no it's

not 128. um it's not 128. that's some

different

that a scattered internal and i'm trying

to remember the name of it i can't

remember it but there is one that is

or the early hundreds and i'm trying to

look at i can't figure it out what it is

there's one thirty eight which

one let me try that talks about

restlessness

okay wait a second

i mean

there's something related to that

there's something related to that which

talks about a mind or an attention that

is non-dispersed and from that i

interpret it as saying on scattered

meaning the mind doesn't

doesn't become swayed

here and there by some kind of

distraction that's right it wasn't 138.

wait a minute is um

here you go i got it i got it

138 okay

and what it has is scattered externally

or stuck internally

and the cause is craving

keeping attention on the distraction is

a bad thing

you see and it talks about distracted

and scattered

externally and then it goes over and

says

not

distracted or scattered external it

gives you an explanation at section 11

10 and 11. that would help someone who

thinks they're

you know

what we were just what you were just

talking about if you go back to that

uh that's my imagination one

thirty eight you said

no it wasn't 138 with a second

uh it's um and it's the one about

agitate agitation is what this is about

agitation

that would i say would i say it was did

somebody hear me say whatever they said

you said they saved

what i'm trying to find it again

page

1075. yeah 1001

1074 is udacivenga the exposition of a

summary hint it's the topic is hindrance

management

agitation and non-agitation it's a

really good one to read about

uh the hindrances very very good one

yeah

and the stuck internally the stuck

internally i i would say is the way i

interpret that is

not to take the meditation seriously

it sounds very counter-intuitive but

it's basically not to make it a big deal

just let things flow

and let this just happen

yeah i would say

that's going along with what it's saying

exactly yeah

yeah not stuck internally is when you're

doing you're sitting and calmly doing it

yeah going through the journals

okay i think that's uh i think that's a

wrap yeah

what does everybody think

all right any less questions or i'll go

all right we have a thumbs up

okay

going once

going twice

okay it's a wrap

thank you very much gelson

topic today was about giving so go and

give and give off

thank you

from damasuke production

goodbye thank you bye

follow those precepts

thank you nelson

thank you

thank you david

thank you thank you thank you

thank you

[Music]

you

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

okay

looking good

all right should i get started

all right let's get started

okay so today i am going to be reading

from majminikaya 142.

this is the the kina vibhanga sutta

that is the exposition of offerings

thus if i heard on one occasion

the blessed one was living in the sakyan

country at kapalavatu in negrodus park

then mahapad pajapati gotami

took a new pair of clothes and went to

the blessed one

mahapajapati gotomi is the

is the maternal aunt of the buddha and

after the

after the bodhisattva at the time

his mother passed away uh

she took care of him

and she was his uh

was his maternal aunt but she also was

his

uh stepmother

after paying homage to him she sat down

at one side and said to the blessed one

venerable sir this new pair of clothes

thoughts has been spun by me woven by me

especially for the blessed one venerable

sir let the blessed one accept it from

me out of compassion

when this was said the blessed one told

her

give it to the sangha gotami

when you give it to the sangha both i

and the sangha will be honored

a second time and a third time she said

to the blessed one

venerable sir accepted from me out of

compassion

a second time and the third time the

blessed one told her

give it to the sangha gotami

when you give it to the sangha both i

and the sangha will be honored

then the venerable ananda said to the

blessed one venerable sir

let the blessed one accept new pair of

clots from mahapa japati gautami

maha pajapati gautami has been very

helpful to the blessed one venerable sir

as his mother's sister she was his nurse

his foster mother

the one who gave him milk

she suckled the blessed one when his own

mother died

the blessed one too has been very

helpful to mahaprabhu gautami venerable

sir it is owing to the blessed one that

mahaprabhu

has done for has gone for refuge to the

badal the dhamma and the sangha

it is owing to the blessed one that

mahaprabhu

abstains from killing living beings

from taking what is not given from

misconduct in sensual pleasures from

false speech and from wine liquor and

intoxicants which are the basis of

negligence

so in other words she has her precepts

in order

she maintains her precepts

it is owing to the blessed one that

mahaprabhu

possesses unwavering confidence in the

buddha the dhamma and the sangha

and that she possesses the virtues loved

by the noble ones

it is owing to the blessed one that

mahapa japati

gautami is free from doubt about

suffering

about the origin of suffering

about the cessation of suffering and

about the way leading to the cessation

of suffering

the blessed one has been very helpful

to mahaprabhu gautami

so this indicates that at this time

based on what ananda is saying

uh was a stream enter because these are

the five factors

of the stream enter that is to say

they have

complete conviction

in the buddha in the dhamma and in the

sangha

they maintain their precepts and they

are wholesome in thought

words and in deeds

and when they do break a precept it

would be a minor precept they

immediately

make a confession or make a

determination

that

they will not break that precept again

and the most important part of this

is that

she has no doubt about the four noble

truths so this is one way to understand

how somebody might be a stream enter of

course there's the other three the other

two feathers along with that that is the

better of the personality view the

belief in the personal self that goes

away

and the fetter of clinging to rights and

rituals with the belief that they will

lead to nibana

that goes away as well

that is so ananda that is so when one

person owing to another has gone for

refuge to the buddha the dhamma and the

sangha i say that it is not easy for the

former to repay the latter by paying

homage to him

rising up for him

according him reverential salutation and

polite services

and by providing robes arms food resting

places and medicinal requisites

in other words

by having that conviction in the buddha

the dhamma and the sangha that in itself

is a great thing as soon as you come to

that realization it is indeed difficult

to repay

the teacher or the sangha to be to what

they have provided you because

what they have provided you is

along with the other factors of stream

entry

the understanding of the dhamma to some

extent they have provided you with the

possibility of

no more rebirths in the lower realms and

that is a wonderful thing

that is a huge thing and

all you can do is

repay the sangha

with whatever you want to offer them

with that generosity

that attitude of generosity is really

also

imbued with the attitude of gratitude in

other words

once you understand the scope of

why it is important to

give to the sangha

then you understand how it affects your

own practice

when you give to the sangha when you

give to anybody with a wholesome

intention when you give to somebody with

an attitude of gratitude without any

expectation

with generosity without

having any expectation of any kind of

reward

that in itself is a reward that in

itself is uplifting to the mind

if you think about the times when you

have been

generous to somebody just because it

felt good

you immediately have an uplifted mind

and this is one of the recollections you

can do for your meditation practice

number one you have the precepts which

you continue to maintain

but number two you think about all the

times you've been generous

that generosity immediately brings a

wholesome intention in the mind

it brings clarity in the mind and that

provides

a perfect

situation for your mind to experience

the meditation

and so he goes on to say

when one person owing to another has

come to abstain

from killing living beings

from taking what is not given

from misconduct in sensual pleasures

from false speech and from wine liquor

in intoxicants

in other words when one maintains the

precepts

i say that it is not easy for the former

to repay the latter

by paying homage to him

by paying homage to him rising up for

him

according him reverential salutation and

polite services

and by providing robes arms food resting

places and medicinal requisites

when one person owing to another has

come to un to possess unwavering

confidence in the buddha

the dhamma and the sangha

and to possess the virtues loved by

noble ones i say that it is not easy for

the former

to repay the latter by paying homage to

him

let's go back here paying homage to him

rising up for him

according him

according him reverential salutation and

polite services

and by providing

robes arms food resting places and

medicinal requisites

when one person owing to another has

become free from doubt about suffering

about the origin of suffering about the

cessation of suffering and about the way

leading to the cessation of suffering i

say that it is not easy for him for for

the former

to repay the ladder by paying homage to

him

[Music]

rising up for him according him

reverential salutation and polite

services

and by providing robes arms food resting

places and medicinal requisites

now he gets into the different types of

personal offerings he says

there are fourteen kinds of personal

offerings ananda

one gives a gift to the

accomplished and fully enlightened this

is the first kind of personal offering

one gives a gift to a pacheco buddha but

is a solitary buddha

it's one who becomes self-enlightened

one who becomes

aware of the dhamma and fully realized

but does not go on to teach he doesn't

have

the interest inclination or capacity to

teach so this is a solitary buddha

this is the second kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift

a gift to an arahat disciple

of the tata this is the third kind of

personal offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of arahitship

this is the fourth kind of offering

so here one is the arahat with fruition

and the other is the

with path

this is the fourth kind of personal

offering one gives a gift to a

non-returner

this is the fifth kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of non-return so that's the

anagami with path and origami with

fruition this is the sixth kind of

personal offering

one gives a gift to a once returner

sakadagami that is the seventh kind of

personal offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of one's return

so that is the sakuragami with path

this is

the eighth kind of personal offering

one gives a gift to a stream enterer

this is the ninth kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization

of the fruit of stream entry

and so that again is stream enter with

path and stream entry with fruition

this is the tenth kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to one outside

the dispensation who is free from lust

for central pleasures

this is the 11th kind of personal

offering

so this could be any other kind of

ascetic or

any kind of monk outside of

the dharma outside of buddhism

and even if you give them an offering

you give it with gratitude you give it

with generosity

and that's still considered to be an

effective offering it says who is free

from lust for central pleasure so

that is to say that even if it is

somebody who is outside of the buddha's

dispensation

they have a certain level of wisdom they

still have a certain level of

understanding which leads them to

no longer attaching clean

essential pleasures

they might be doing their own thing in

terms of religious or spiritual

uh efforts but they are on the way to

trying to get away from attaching to

spiritual uh attaching to central

pleasures so it's still a valid offering

to give

one gives a gift to a virtuous ordinary

person this is a 12th kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to an immoral ordinary

person so that's interesting one gives a

gift to an an immoral ordinary person

this is the 13th

kind of personal offering

even if somebody is immoral maybe you

don't know it but if somebody is immoral

and you still give with generosity you

still give with the attitude of

gratitude that still uplifts your mind

the whole point here is how how do you

intend or what is your intention when

you give whether it's

food or clothing or shelter or medicines

or anything maybe it's just

giving a ride to somebody who needs a

ride to the train station or to the

airport

maybe it's just somebody who needs a

smile it doesn't matter if the person is

moral or immoral what matters is you

remain on in a wholesome state of mind

and as easy as giving giving away your

smile you immediately uplift the other

person with that smile so

actually both yourself and the other

person are uplifted for that moment

one gives a gift to an animal

this is the 14th kind of personal

offering

so you can give to a pet you can give to

dog or a cat or

an animal you see on the way to ducks to

squirrels

whatever it might be those are still

living beings and giving to living

beings

it provides an uplifting mind an

uplifted mind

hear in ananda by giving a gift to an

animal

the offering may be expected to repay a

hundred fold

what that really means and this is

according to the commentary

is when you give to an animal just by

sharing your food to

sharing your food with a dog or a cat or

a pet or whatever it might be

that offering may be expected to repay a

hundred fold that means that for the

next hundred existences or at some point

a hundred different existences

you are expected to have an uplifted

state of being

by giving a gift to an immoral ordinary

person the offering may be expected to

repay a thousand-fold by giving a gift

to a virtuous ordinary person the

offering may be expected to repay a

hundred thousand-fold

by giving a gift to one outside the

dispensation who was free from lust for

central pleasures

the offering may be expected to repay a

hundred thousands

a hundred thousand times a hundred

thousand fold so

you can do the math on that one

by giving a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of stream entry

the offering may be expected to repay

incalculable

incalculably

immeasurably

in other words

there is a hierarchy in terms of how you

give and who you give to

and eventually when you give to the

other attainers

whether it's a stream enter whether it's

sakadagami there is

a level of fruition uh of that giving so

it would be

it would give more fruit to give to

sakuragami to then to a stream enter or

to an onagami then to a sakuragami or to

an arahat then to an onigami and of

course to a pacheco buddha or buddha but

we don't have those nowadays so

you know besides you don't really know

who who that attainer is whether they

have stream entry or not whether they

have sakuragami or not whether they are

in anagami or not whether they're in

arahat or not

regardless you still give

and as the buddha was saying earlier

when you give to the sangha

you honor him and the sangha so whenever

you give to a monastic it's not you're

giving it just specifically

to that particular monastic you are

offering this

as a way of repayment for the

the benefits that you received from the

dharma through the sangha and through

the buddha so when you offer something

to the sangha or to a monastic you're

actually offering it to that monastic

who represents the entire sangha so they

will accept it gladly on behalf of the

sangha

but they don't accept it for themselves

it's not something that is personal in

that sense it is for the entire sangha

then should be said about giving to a

stream enter what should be said about

giving a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of one's return

way once returner

the one who has entered upon the way to

the realization of the fruit of

non-return

who a non-returner

to one who has entered upon the way to

the realization of the fruit

what should be said about giving a gift

to at the target accomplished and fully

enlightened

now he gets into a different category of

different kinds of offerings he says

there are seven kinds of offerings made

to the sangha anandam

one gives a gift to the sangha of both

bekus and bikunis headed by the buddha

this is the first kind of offering made

to the sangha

this is interesting so he says or rather

the text says bhikkhus and bikunins

but a little historical perspective on

this it was really at the request of

mahaprabhu

gautami who wanted to go forth and

become

a monastic

and at this point in time she is a lay

person who wants to offer these clots to

the buddha

so it seems to suggest then that this

edition of the bikunis came out came

about later just to

give clarification that it is for the

bikus and for the bikunis

um even though

the bikini

the the idea of bikunis uh didn't yet

come into being

until mahapajapati and

other women are uh with her requested

that they go they'd be allowed to go

forth

so then he says one gives a gift to a

sangha of both because and bikunis after

the tata has attained final nibana

in other words there is the offering

that's given

when buddha is still around

it's given to both

the sangha of both bikunis and bikus

when he is still around and their second

type is when he has continued on into or

passed on into prairie nebana and so

after the buddha the sangha still lives

and so it is right to still offer the

sangha even after

the buddha has passed on

here's another one one gives a gift to a

sangha of bhikkhus

this is the third kind of offering made

to the sangha one gives a gift to a

sangha of bhikkhunis so separately one

to the male monastics and separately

one to the female monastics this is the

fourth kind of offering mate the sangha

one gives a gift saying appoint so many

bekus and bikunis for me from the sangha

this is the fifth kind of offering made

to the sangha

one gives a gift saying appoint so many

bekus for me from the sangha

this is the sixth kind of offering

made to the sangha

one gives a gift saying appoint so many

bhikkhunis from me from the sangha

this is the seventh kind of offering

made to the sangha

in future times ananda there will be

members of the clan who are yellow necks

immoral of evil character

people will give gifts to those immoral

persons

for the sake of the sangha

even then i say

an offering made to the sangha is

incalculable immeasurable

and i say that in no way is a gift to a

person individually

ever more fruitful

than an offering made to the sangha so

let's break that down

in future times ananda there will be

members of the clan who are yellow necks

immoral of evil character

so these are people who aren't part of

the sangha but they wear the yellow

robes and they roam about begging for

arms and things like that you see that

around

some parts of asia specifically in some

parts of india

and they might be evil of evil character

in the sense that they don't really

follow the precepts and they'll be

immoral

but then people will give gifts to them

for the sake of the sangha even then

because of your

your pure wholesome intention

that purifies that whole process and so

there is an intention of the giver that

purifies and uplifts the mind

even if the recipient

is unwholesome even if the recipient

is immoral and of

not such a great character and then he

says

and i say that in no way is a gift to a

person individually ever more fruitful

than an offering made to the sangha

in other words even if you give to an

arahat with fruition

and you're giving it something to them

personally

you're saying that this is for you

specifically

that's not any more fruitful

than giving something that is meant for

the entire sangha even if that sangha

doesn't have even a stream enter doesn't

have even one stream enter because

you're offering something collectively

to the sangha for their benefit

rather than

rather than having it given individually

to somebody with the idea that this will

benefit just one person it makes more

sense in terms of giving it to a

collective group

or giving it to

that sangha that will benefit even much

there are another four kinds of

purification

of offering

what for

there is the offering that is purified

by the giver not by the receiver

there is the offering that is given

that is purified by the receiver and not

by the giver

there is the offering that is purified

neither by the giver nor by the receiver

there is the offering that is purified

both by the giver and by the receiver

the brother is going to go into how

these four come to be he says

and how was the offering purified by the

giver

not by the receiver

here the giver is virtuous of good

character and the receiver is immoral of

evil character thus the offering is

purified by the giver

not by the receiver

and how is the offering purified by the

receiver not by the giver here the giver

is immoral of evil character and the

receiver is virtuous of good character

thus

the offering is purified by the receiver

and not by the giver

and how is the offering purified neither

by the giver nor by the receiver here

the giver is immoral of evil character

and the receiver is immoral of evil of

evil character

thus the offering is purified neither by

the giver nor by the receiver

and how is the offering purified both by

the receiver and by the giver and by the

receiver

here the giver is virtuous of good

character and the receiver is virtuous

of good character thus the offering is

purified both by the giver and by the

receiver

these are the four kinds of purification

of offering

so here the understanding should be that

when you give

give with a wholesome intention

give with the mind purified by the

precepts

give with the mind that is purified by

good behavior by good character

because

that purifies the offering even if the

recipient

might be of immoral character

might not be taking the precepts might

be breaking the precepts whatever that

might be

the offering is still valid because it's

been purified by somebody

with wholesome intentions

verified by somebody who has

taken and continues to maintain

the precepts

so before you give it's important to

understand your intention

given

it's important to understand that you

don't want to give with a with a heart

that is

muddled by breaking of the precepts

given by a confused mind given by

an agitated mind given by a restless

mind given by a craving mind take the

precepts determine that you will

maintain the precepts have and hold some

intention and then give

before we finish this off i wanted to

share an interesting story now this

isn't from the dharma but it's an

interesting story nonetheless

and it's a story from actually the

upanishads interestingly enough and it's

i'll just i'll just read it and you just

get a sense of

the ancient indian ethos

at the time of the buddha and before of

what it meant to give and to be generous

once all the descendants of

prajapati that is brahma

that's the mahabrahma

the devas the men and the asuras or the

devas the humans and the asuras

lived with him for some time as students

and one day the devas approached

prajapati and said teach us

and in reply he uttered one syllable da

and then he asked have you understood

and they said

yes we have understood

you said to us

which means in sanskrit which means to

be self-controlled

the instruction given to the devas is

it's a wondrous place being in the sixth

century's heavens and you can get

carried away with pl uh pleasures

you know you might party be partying all

night and all day long and things like

that but

the way to having better peace of mind

more peace of mind and and

having a more wholesome intention is to

be self-controlled be mindful

and regulate the kinds of pleasures that

you're experiencing

then the humans went to pajapati

and said teach us and he said to them

the same syllable da and he asked him

have you understood

and they said yes we have understood to

us you are saying

another word of meaning being generous

providing and offering dhana

and he said yes you have understood so

what's interesting here is for the devas

the instruction is to be self-controlled

to have some level of regulation

and for the humans those who are on the

human plane the way to a mind that is

peaceful a mind that is wholesome

is to be generous is to give and give

with the heart

where it's purified by the precepts

give with a heart that has no

expectation of reward because the reward

itself

is the uplifting mind that arises the

uplifted mind that arises from that

generosity from that

and then finally he says the same thing

to the asuras

and they say what and he asked what have

you understood and they say

which means compassion the way out of

the asura realm is to develop

compassion to develop love and kindness

that was an interesting story from there

but it gives some clarity on the

importance

of generosity the importance of ghana

and when you give with the heart that is

purified by the precepts

it purifies that offering and it

purifies and further uplifts the mind

so that it is stabilized enough for

collectedness

which then gives rise to

a better samadhi practice better

experience of the janas which gives

better clarity and ultimately gives rise

to panya insight

and ultimately the experience of nibana

the first few steps towards nirvana is

maintaining a virtuous mindset

and being generous

that is what the blessed one said

when the sublime one had said that the

teacher said further

now he's speaking in verse he says

when a virtuous person

to an immoral person gives with trusting

heart a gift righteously obtained

placing faith righteously obtained means

that it's something that you have you

haven't stolen it you haven't gotten it

out of immoral means

placing faith that the fruit of action

is great the giver's virtue

is what purifies the offering

when an immoral person to a virtuous

person gives with untrusting heart a

gift

unrighteously obtained

nor places faith

that the fruit of action is great

the receiver's virtue purifies the

offering so even if an immoral person is

giving

if the person who is receiving is of an

uplifted mind

is of a wholesome nature

the nature of their mind will purify

that offering

when an immoral person to an immoral

person gives we're trusting untrusting

heart

a gift unrighteously obtained nor places

faith that the fruit of action is great

neither virtue pure neither's virtue

purifies the offering so

basically even in that process of giving

if it's given from one immoral person to

the other

neither is really uplifted by it

and then when a virtuous person to a

virtuous person gives with trusting

heart a gift righteously obtained

facing faith that the fruit of action is

great

that gift i will say i say they will

come to full fruition

when a passionless person

through a passionless person gives

with trusting heart a gift righteously

obtained

placing faith at the fruit of action is

great

that gift i say is the best of worldly

gifts

when he says a passionless person to a

passionless person gives

he's talking about an arahat he's

talking about one arahat giving to a

another arahat

even though their minds are both

uplifted and so on they don't really

need to further uplift their mind but

that's one of the best gifts that is the

best of worldly gifts as the buddha says

so for the arahat there is no more

coming to being and so when they accept

a gift they're not accepting from that

sense of a person they're not accepting

from a sense of a being

but rather

that gift in itself

is purified that gift or that offering

is purified

just for the

sake that it is an arahat providing to

another arahat however they don't have

any expectations anyway

they won't have an intention that may

this gift provide me benefit because

there is no more coming to being for

them there is no sense of being for them

they have destroyed all idea of a

personhood

they have destroyed all idea of a self

that if that is affected by that

and so their mind is continuously

uplifted

and so even when they're giving

to another arahant there's nothing going

on except that it is a great gift it is

a wonderful gift because

both people are not only virtuous

but they have completely destroyed the

paints and fetters and that therefore

super purifies if you will that gift

that is the end of the suta

[Music]

does anybody have any questions

tillerson i have one question

[Music]

is donna to a

noble person

because the noble person knows the value

of ghana

of more effect it will have more effect

it was told in the sutta

for the reason he had practiced to the

ultimate level

he would gain more

better merits

so in such a situation

even

immoral person

how he he will get more benefits when

company entire sutra says he gets more

benefits

it says immoral person gets more

benefits

at one instance

um if i understand correctly

you're saying that how is it that the

immoral person would benefit from giving

to somebody who is moral is that your

question or to a noble disciples yes yes

yes it one at one stage it was told like

that the other state the other

instance the noble person because he

knows the value of dhana

dhana means merits

or anything and he will get more

merits

who will get more variates whether

immoral person or the noble person

or a person or a noble person

because of giving donna who will get

more merits

okay let me let me make sure i

understand the question correctly so if

a lay person

somebody who has a wholesome intention

gives to a noble one that is to say

either a monastic or in this case

somebody who has an

attainment if they're both

if they're both virtuous obviously then

that purifies the gift that purifies the

offering

and that person is uplifted

but in the case of one who might be

immoral or of not such a great character

and they give to somebody who is a

monastic

that gift is still purified by that

monastic uh or by that noble one or that

that person who has the attainment

because that person the receiver's mind

is uplifted

but i will go a step further and say

because of the fact that they gave

to a noble disciple because of the fact

that they gave to somebody

the very act of giving which is the

intention of giving even if the person

was not virtuous it will purify their

mind

at some point or another that's still

some kind of karmic action at play even

if they're giving to somebody of who the

receiver who is of a noble mind

one who is uplifted

at some point or another it will purify

their mind at some point or another it

will uplift their mind

but what has to be understand started

here is that when the giver is of an

impure mind

they are not the ones that are purifying

the offering the offering or the gift is

purified by the receiver

with that pure mind

[Music]

but more merits are there for the noble

person because he knows the value of

dhana

that is my contention could you please

agree

more merits will be there only for the

receiver

more merits will be there for the

receiver if the noble person knows the

values

okay

well according to the suta it's saying

that there are levels of there are

levels of merit depending upon who you

give to so that seems to that seems to

align with what you're saying

or you're what you're saying seems to

align with what the scoop is more

medicines are there for the noble person

more merits are there for the noble

person well yes

because he is virtuous he's more

virtuous and also he knows the value of

the donna

okay i see what you said

also conveys that's what i want to

convey

okay

well i think uh i think here uh when

somebody receives with uh gratitude or

when a noble person receives

i think the merit really uh the

importance of the merit is rarely with

the

with the with the giver more than the

receiver in this case because the

receiver if it's a noble disciple if

it's a monastic they're receiving on

behalf of the sangha

and so the merit that has been been

generated from giving to the sangha

really goes to the receiver because all

they're doing is repaying the debt of

dhamma to them

thank you that is okay

thank you

you're welcome

nelson

yes

[Music]

what sort of sprung to mind for me at

the moment is

every time that i

because my wife and i just had a baby so

coming to listen to a talk involves me

asking a question or can i go and listen

to this talk so every time my wife says

hey of course no problem is that that's

the form of dhana isn't it in some ways

like she's giving me like the gift of

access to dharma she's giving her

she's giving you permission to listen

yes yes we're giving me permission to

leave her to look after the baby i guess

but she's giving me permission she's

given me permission in some ways isn't

she

to listen to dharma is that correct

yeah she she i mean you she has she has

basically uh said go ahead and listen to

the dhamma and you know she has an

uplifted mind because of that and you

have an uplifted mind because of that

okay that in itself is a reward really

an uplifted mind

and then once you have that uplifted

mind you can use that for further

practice

hello dalton

hello

what does it mean

when the gif when it says the gift is

purified of what is the gift purified is

it that

all the merit that potentially comes

through giving it comes to to full

effect

right that's basically it so when the

gift is purified it's not like it's

purifying the gift itself but it's

purifying the mind whether it's of the

receiver or of the giver so in other

words if the

the receiver is of a pure mind has

wholesome intentions

it purifies that person but it also

purifies

the giver in some way because

the action of giving itself the

intention of giving itself will

ultimately uplift their mind at some

point or another so the very act of

giving or the very act of receiving so

if somebody is of an immoral nature

and they give to somebody who is

of an immoral nature as well neither of

them have an uplifted mind so it doesn't

really purify it but if any one of those

two or both

are

of an uplifted mind

then or of a pure mind then when they

say that the offering is purified it's

really about purification or further

purification of the mind

yeah okay thank you

hello dylson

hello

if there's a um

like a small local temple or hermitage

that only has one monk

and you give a gift are you giving to

the sangha are you giving to that one

monk who's there

you're giving to the sangha

the monk or the monastic is

representation of the sangha so when you

give you give with the idea that you're

giving to the sangha

even if it benefits that monastic

personally

nelson

um yes

i think there is a suta where it's

mentioned that one should be giving with

both hands

but of course in these modern days

one

writes a check or one

uses paypal or whatever

so i've always been wondering about

how that

effect

would be

maybe less

than

being able to give with one not one's

own

hands that's a good question and i i'll

say you know from my experience in asia

i think this is

one thing is it's a cultural thing

it's a sign of respect like when i was

in cambodia

one of the things is when they give

money to anybody

they give it with both hands

in any case they give it with both hands

or they'll give it like this

as a sign of as a sign of respect

so it's really more of showing the

reverence that you know here is maidana

and you know please accept it on behalf

of the sangha

when you're giving to a monastic or even

if you're offering it to another person

you give it with both hands and so it's

just representing that action is

representing your intention which is

wholesome

so whenever you give with uh

paypal or

bitcoin or whatever it might be

if your intention is wholesome

that's really what

at least that's how i understand it

um hello if i may i have another

question that's not related to donna

sure

it's about

thank you it's about um

about joy

in the third ayathana in the uh second

yes you're talking about the second

consciousness

yes

most of the time it's

translated as empathetic joy

you also use that

but

i i wonder if that empathetic comes not

so much from the suttas but from other

traditions or uh

maybe philosophies behind that and if

it's really empathetic joy or if it's

just joy i had this discussion just

today in a meeting with a trim friend

and

we wondered

what's more correct just only joy or

empathetic joy

i had this discussion with monty as well

while i've been here and

this is how i would clarify it

uh mudita that's really the pali word

mudita which actually just means

you know it is sometimes sympathetic joy

or sometimes empathetic joy but i would

say when you are

dealing with people when you are out and

about in your daily life that empathetic

joy is the joy you experience when

somebody has a wholesome

celebration like some kind of wholesome

success

when somebody graduates or somebody gets

married you immediately feel happy for

them you feel

joyful for them when somebody uh has uh

you know has given birth to a baby you

feel happy for them

uh so within let's say day-to-day life

that experience of joy is just being

happy for that person but the quality of

that joy within the meditation is just

that content joy it's a it's it is joy

but it's

in my experience a softer kind of joy

than you would experience let's say with

pity

which is a little more energetic and

bubbly

yeah

so uh the rendering of the word

depends a bit on if one is uh in that

formal in that meditative state or in

daily life

yeah because the reason is it's kind of

difficult to say well who are you being

happy for uh while you're in

in that experience of mudita

and that's understandable i mean if it

helps to be able to be

uh joyful by thinking about a person uh

then that's kind of empathetic joy but

i think what's more important in the

meditation is to have the quality of the

joy rather than just the

trying to fight figure out how to find

that joy having the joy in itself

uh is more than enough

yeah okay thank you very much

uh mr elsa

yes

uh sir

giving to a viparshna center is it like

giving to the sangha

yes it's still giving it's still giving

to the sangha because oh well if there

are monastics there yes exactly

no uh a vipassana center where lay

people come to do courses with

vibrational courses meditation courses

are they sangha for the

time they remain at the center

the are the fruits the same as giving to

the sangha monastics or

i would say no

you're just giving to lay people

i haven't

can i ask

i have to

the same thing okay uh

told in the upanishads also that is why

am referring again

so what do you uh what is your

what is

more when compared to the person who is

giving

this is what referred in the one of the

upanishads

instead of sangha but the question

question is did the buddha receive the

merit or did sujata receive the merit

buddha received buddha knows the value

of dhana that is why he got

enlightenment afterwards

this is what mentioned in one of the

upanishads

okay i see you're talking about the

upanishads maybe i made a mistake by

bringing up the upanishads because

outside of that whole understanding of

the upanishads

their understanding of buddhism

is different because they have a

different view

they have a view of atman and brahman

the reason i brought up the upanishads

was because it's a nice story from

ancient india about the valley of

generosity but

that doesn't validate the fact that the

upanishads have any kind of say within

buddhism because it's a completely

different philosophy it's a differently

it's a completely different viewpoint

but the idea that the buddha was the one

who received the merit i don't think

that makes sense it's fujiata who

received the merit

yes thank you

uh i had a question

would you have some suggestions about

like uh recollecting um

generosity especially

in the context of children because that

would interest me very much

in the context of children how do you

mean uh for example when

when i bring my son to bed after we we

tried to do these like meta-like

exercises of sending love bubbles and

things like that i wonder if you have

any suggestions of doing something

similar with generosity recollecting

generous thoughts or things that it was

done during the day something like along

those lines

i think that's a wonderful practice

because uh that really uplifts the mind

when you think about i mean that's

really why you do the precepts that's

really why you are generous one it

really

naturally uplifts the mind but it can be

a great gateway to loving kindness for

yourself and for others when you think

about things that you're grateful for

when you think about the things that

you've done in the past that are

wholesome

or when you think about the times you

were generous and it uplifts the mind

it's a great igniter for loving kindness

and then continuing that loving kindness

in your practice

thank you

i'm not sure i was raising my hand

but i wanted to ask you one question

when you have two um

let's put it to you this way if you have

there's a elderly project in um

near alastair in mumbai and

these people have nowhere to go they're

deathly poor very very poor

and they have no support you know the

government has nothing for them

and if one of them

was to help another one and they were

hindu

um you know isn't this

giving its

self isn't the giving itself a helping

to each other isn't that an uplifted act

oh absolutely yes and is there some kind

of purification going on when someone

steps out of line from the way people

are being treated and helps another

person in

some place like that you know and

there's also a terrible terrible

situation with a lack of housing right

now and many many people on the street

definitely deathly poor you know and so

when someone makes an effort that they

don't normally make in in the community

to help another one make have enough

food you see things like that so i can't

i can't see where both of the people are

from an immoral background and both of

them are desperate

and they do this act of giving itself to

it to each other that becomes an

uplifted act and there's purification

involved in that to some extent

maybe you can say the lowest

on the rack

if you want to

but they're both getting very happy

you know and yeah the other thing i

think it's about the yeah okay

go ahead go ahead

i think it's really about the it's

really about the act of giving itself

definitely but uh if if somebody was

poor and still was giving if somebody

that that act itself is is being

being an act of generosity to somebody

whatever little you can give that still

uplifts the mind so my contention there

if it's between two immoral people

the

the act of giving itself

will come to fruition at some point in

time but it doesn't necessarily update

their mind in that moment it's the karma

of giving that will still have some kind

of effect maybe in the next moment maybe

in a couple of moments maybe in another

lifetime whatever it might be

yeah

but helping each other i think the movie

i can't get out of my mind in this whole

subject is k-packs do you know the movie

k-pacs

it was where an alien an alien from mars

came and they were going to put him in a

they actually did they chucked him into

bellevue in new york

and then he the doctors didn't know how

to treat him and while he was there he

integrated all the patients by telling

one to help another do the laundry and

you help her make her bed and all of a

sudden because they had every had

something to do and someone to help all

of a sudden everyone was cured in the

whole world which irritated doctors no

end

okay also i just wanted to note

something if you're giving a check

to the song and you're sending it um sil

what you need to do is find a two-handed

uh a two-handed emoji to go with it

so that you're you're giving two hands

like this as you're that's a great idea

emoji that's what some of my students

started doing and um the other thing

about empathetic joy

or um

yeah empathetic joy and sympathetic joy

is what happened to the word altruism

because the translation was altruistic

meaning the strange experience

of uh not being involved with another

person and

suddenly that you hear the person just

got into school or got you know passed

an exam and you feel this uplifted

feeling that that's what i think they're

talking about

and i had a few students that really

claimed that happened

and it happened to me when i

went through that of of having this

unusual experience not understanding

what it was why am i so happy this

person i don't even know and seek a

happy you know succeeded

and i began to think maybe there's

something to this altruism

so altruistic is the other word the old

word and some people like it some people

want to call this just regular joy a

different level of it

um yeah

and go either way yeah

i'm glad you brought that up yeah

because altruistic joy is a great uh a

great uh translation too because it

doesn't have to be a person that you

know it could be just somebody a

stranger you hear oh you know they had

something great happening in their life

and you have that joy for them that's

the kind of joy that is being

experienced in daily life that's that's

the mudita

uh but then the quality of it is

experienced in the meditation yeah

i really liked your talk very nice very

clear thank you thank you thank you

hi dylsen um i have a second question

how do you know how much to give like

what is like giving too much

that's a very good question you know

there is a there's a friend of mine here

who was talking about it and uh

his uh

his brother asked the same question of

him like how much to give and he said

give until it hurts just a little bit

that was an interesting way of saying it

because it's basically

you are giving with an open heart and

you're giving

not to the extent that you go bankrupt

or you go in debt and things like that

but you give a little extra something

that you feel uh

you know will benefit the other person

thank you

[Music]

mark

i uh

i was on a retreat once and uh

someone asked the same question

and

the answer that was given was

by a physician

because you can

give too much medication as well as too

little

so his uh

his answers was that it was better

to give too much

than too little

so i just wanted to share that thank you

for your talk today it's been wonderful

thank you

[Music]

so perhaps uh people have any other

questions like questions about practice

i think nelson could take a few of those

if anybody has something

and i did find the two-handed emoji on

zoom if you

next time

i put it in the chat so take it away

jills

yeah does anybody have any questions

about the practice or

anything they've read in the supers

whatever it might be i think

practice-based questions would be great

because it'll really help you

yes

uh lately i have um

had quite a few like problems so i've

been trying to like focus

a lot of uh the meta like to work

towards myself but

i'm wondering

is it possible to combine that with um

making actual like progress in the

meditation as well you know i'm trying

to make it really like sincere

and make the strength of the meta like

the object you know almost to like

overturn some of the well uproot some of

the defilements are like quite an

abundance in my heart i'm wondering if

you could maybe comment on that please

well i want to caution you about trying

too hard because if you're going to you

know concentrate your mind on the method

you're going to start to see

that you're becoming one pointed that

method and then you're going to start to

see that you're suppressing the mind and

you might cause yourself

pain uh in the head and things like that

so i want to caution you about that let

the method flow wherever it's going to

flow whether it's to yourself

or to a spiritual friend in particular

or if you're radiating in all directions

just do that

the defilements will go when they go you

know if you make so much of an effort to

let go of the defilements

and what you're actually doing is you're

having longing which is another way of

saying craving

and you have an aversion to what's

really happening

okay

thank you

i have a question delson

yes

i've been doing um forgiveness

meditation for some weeks now

and

yes i can remember things i did wrong or

i hurt people

but

there's nothing really big coming up and

i wonder how long to do this it feels

good to do it but

i'm not sure

yeah

the the thing about forgiveness practice

is it's a great way to

kind of supercharge your loving kindness

there comes a point after you're doing

your forgiveness practice that you feel

just naturally uplifted you feel

naturally light

you feel like whatever blockage that

might be to radiating the method to a

spiritual friend

goes away

when your mind intuits that you know

i've done enough forgiveness everybody

that seems to have come in

having to be forgiven uh is forgiven and

you forgive yourself and you feel like

you've been forgiven and your mind will

say okay it's time to go back to the

practice

so you should ask your intuition and see

does it feel that way

okay thank you very much

i have a question

yes

when you're radiating in the different

directions does it matter which order

you radiate in like first and

you know like

usually i'll do front and in the back

and then

east west and then um

up and down at the end or can you do i

mean does it matter

which how you do that which order you do

that in

no it doesn't matter uh what really

matters is when you're radiating not to

push

so you have an intention of one

direction and you just watch the flow of

the meta or the compassion or whatever

it might be

going in that direction and the next

direction and so on so

the the sequence of directions doesn't

really matter at all

okay

thank you

uh delson i i do have another question i

do apologize if anybody else was wanting

to jump in

again

with me saying earlier on that we've

just had a child so like obviously

time's like quite limited and but but

actually sometimes now i'm getting maybe

an hour to myself in the morning

um i i have quite a strong like like for

walking meditation like is it

advisable to try and just sit for an

hour as opposed to maybe try and break

that into a half an hour sit and a half

an hour walk because i find that walking

meditation really does help me take

the practice into daily life

where obviously it feels like you can

make more

progress in some ways so sitting

practice

yeah i i would incline towards walk uh

sorry towards uh sitting for one hour

rather than breaking that up between

walking and sitting because you want

that time you really want as much time

as you can

to keep the mind settled while it's in

sitting meditation

i mean no doubt there is great benefit

in walking meditation as you just said

which is you know you are able to infuse

loving kindness with whatever it is

you're doing it's a great practice to do

that so my suggestion there would be

uh do the do the sitting practice for

one hour

because you want you want as much time

as possible to do the sitting and then

when you're doing whatever else you're

doing infuse it with loving kindness

uh you know it's just it's just it

doesn't just have to be walking

meditation if you're

taking a shower have loving kindness

you're eating breakfast how loving

kindness you're driving your car have a

living

you're taking the bus have loving

kindness whatever it is you're doing you

are the computer

of loving kindness

if you can smile you can meditate on the

goal

thank you i was beautiful answer thank

you very much

uh um

i have a follow-up question to that or

maybe more of a comment

so um i remember the sutta the buddha

saying of course it's the buddha who

says this um

that the the body posture doesn't matter

the equality of the state he's in is the

same

doesn't matter which which jhana or

ayatana that is

and from my experience um also

of course i respect your suggestion and

your recommendation but from my my

experience it's like a walking

meditation can be

can have the same quality and be as deep

as a sitting meditation of course not to

the extent that you have

cessation while walking but up to the uh

seventh genre it's is walking walking

meditation can be as

half the same quality like sitting

meditation

would you agree

so about that uh you know it's quite

possible somebody can have an experience

with cessation while walking because

i've heard somebody had cessation while

they were eating their food they

suddenly just went into cessation

because their mind was so

pure that it let go so

uh to that point yes it can happen uh

but uh the reason i'm saying sitting is

because there's a tendency while you're

walking with your eyes open obviously

uh to you for you to get

easily distracted

uh you know you might look here and

there and start to go into a flow of

different kinds of thoughts

i mean granted yes you can still have

that level of depth in terms of the

meditation while you're walking but it

really depends on the individual so as a

general recommendation as a general

suggestion

i would say

that you should have some time to sit if

you had the choice between sitting and

walking

okay yeah yeah do the walking i'm sorry

do the sitting

and the walking

you can do at later stage but really you

want that time to sit to really settle

the mind because you have one less sense

input

that you have to deal with

if you're walking you have your eyes

open and there's a tendency there can be

a tendency to get more distracted

and with your eyes closed while you're

sitting so it just makes it easier

yeah yeah okay that makes sense thank

you yeah

and i think you would not be able to

quiet down the physical formations while

walking

that is true you would still have

physical formations there would still be

and whereas if you're sitting you have

the ability to tranquilize them

when you get to the fourth genre

completely

and that really and that

the other thing about that is if you

have a certain level of experience

there are people as i said who just

doing something like washing the dishes

or eating their food or something

suddenly going to cessation

if your mind is clear enough and you you

have the experience

you could experience up to the level of

nothingness and so on

while you're walking it's like your

entire body you don't have any awareness

of the body

it's like as if you're floating and the

only contact you have is the feet

when they touch the ground

unless you're levitating and that's a

different story but

if your feet are on the ground

you

will feel the contact there will still

be some contact which is the body leaf

yeah mark yeah i i would think

it would be also very important to the

location of where you're walking for the

purpose of a uh

what could be called a situational

awareness you know you've got traffic

you've got other people

you've got things going on

your own safety is

is could be important in that process so

that

the choice of location for the walking

would be very important so that you

would have the serenity as well as the

safety

to go into whatever level is appropriate

and that you could use in your practice

yeah that's a very practical point i

mean it's much easier to be for example

here in damascus to do walking because

you don't have to take you know you

don't have to take into account traffic

and things like that

than it is for when you're walking down

the street and you have to cross traffic

that's a very good point so

uh the setting also matters where you're

walking

thank you

i i want to say i just want to say that

we have had some men

over the years i think um that mark and

hunter can remember a certain red-headed

person who might be in the room right

now who just could not stop walking and

needed to walk it off and that is the

first step of stealing the formation

when you're working with men that are

hyper you have to let them walk if they

prefer the walking instead of sitting i

think you'd agree with that

and then what happens is they get to a

point

where they've walked it off enough and

then it's time to sit and when they come

back and sit everything calms down you

know pretty well and it can go into a

sitting but if you try to sit before you

walk if you come home from work and

you're really you know oh gosh this

whole day was like this okay you you

some men just really want to do it i

haven't i've haven't found a woman yet

that really wanted to walk as hard as

some of the men but it happens you know

that's that's a very good point yeah

yeah yeah

that's a very good point because

sometimes i also will recommend if

people feel agitated or they're feeling

restless while they're sitting

they just need some activity in the in

the form of walking or even just running

just to just to expend that extra energy

it's worth the time too to take the time

in the beginning of the retreat to take

one day or two days to check everyone's

posture and to to take the time to find

out what they prefer in their first uh

you know interview

and then uh to watch make sure they're

trained for walking looking six feet

ahead or eight feet ahead at the ground

and not taking a nature walk because

there's training involved in walking

meditation it's not something you just

say go take a walk

and we've all had it i know mark and

andre and i have had it or when

hi irwin

i know irwin really needed to walk

you know and um

maybe kick a tree

i was just trying really hard most of

the time so

irwin i hope you don't kick trees

anymore there might be some tree davis

in there you don't want it disturbed so

yeah well i apologize to them

i accepted

um delson

before before i

found out about swim i used to do a lot

of concentration meditation i've i've

been doing twin for two for a few years

but i still have a habit of like forcing

and trying too hard and you know i'm

getting better at it but some of you had

any advice

yeah you know that's interesting

somebody asked the question like what

are the two things that you see that are

really uh very common among people uh

when it comes to challenges of

meditation and one is definitely trying

too hard and the other is self

acceptance

in other words you know don't be so hard

on yourself don't try to set

such expectations on yourself

if you're enjoying the meditation if

you're enjoying the process then that

means the meditation is working

so if your mind is light

your mind will be clear if you're

if you try too hard your mind you will

see will start to have some restlessness

in the the pressure of the concentration

practice the pressure of trying too hard

brings about a lot of mental energy and

that mental energy manifests

in the form of restlessness

whenever you sit down for meditation

have a

kinder and softer approach a much more

gentle approach and just have the

attitude of let's see what comes up

you know if you have that kind of an

attitude and then just keep observing

your whole your whole

goal here or your let's say the whole

point or the whole effort in the

practice is

to just observe how mind's attention

moves and then when you see that it's

off its object of meditation

just six are every time you six are you

purify your mind and you bring your

mindfulness much you make your

mindfulness much sharper which means now

you'll be even more collected

so it is a

feedback loop that helps

um helps you to sharpen your mindfulness

helps you to sharpen your collectiveness

but if you try too hard from the

beginning what you're going to find is

it's going to be difficult for you to

even recognize that you are restless or

that you are not mindful and it will be

difficult for you to then 6-hour that

process because it takes more time

thanks uh one of the things that happens

is like i'm

i'm trying to let myself be

comfortable feeling relaxed because it

sort of it almost feels like wrong a

little bit to like not be concentrating

and then so

sometimes i'm like i'm getting like like

i think i'm like being relaxed within

like after the meditation like i have a

headache like oh i actually was like

concentrating too hard i didn't notice

it when i was in the meditation though

so when it comes to having a relaxed

feeling

uh there's a couple of ways to

understand that if you see

well first of all there's nothing

there's nothing wrong with relaxing i

mean everybody in this world wants to

relax

and to feel guilty of uh wanting to

relax you know that's

that you have to let go of that's that

would be something that you don't need

more of you know

we already have a lot of people who are

tense in the world and creating all

kinds of crazy situations because they

have so much tension and

so on so

it's actually a good thing to relax it's

a good thing to tranquilize uh the

bodily formations

it's a good thing to become relaxed and

collected because of that relaxation

one way of understanding you know what

is relaxed feel like

is you know what relax feels like i mean

when you tense up your your fist

and you just let that go so when you

recognize that there's some tension

going on you recognize that there's some

restlessness going

that is a point of tension that you have

to just let go of so you recognize it

you release your awareness from it and

you just relax and it relaxes just

letting it go um i had somebody a friend

of mine who was talking about this and

he had an interesting way of

discussing this and that was

it's like when you when you take your

finger and you look at your finger

your mind becomes super fixed on that

finger and you lose

complete awareness of what's happening

outside of just looking at your finger

the relaxed step is

going from just looking at the finger to

just looking at everything it's like

you're expanding your vision if

you're expanding your sense of sight

well while your eyes are open but in the

meditation

it's like you're just expanding your

awareness you're opening up your

awareness when you do

so if you feel

when in the practice that the mind

becomes constricted and it's just trying

too hard or it's trying to just stay

with this object of meditation that's

when you know that you know you have to

pull back

you have to make less effort you have to

relax

and just watch how mind becomes

collected because of the right causes

and conditions that come into play to

give that give rise to that collective

thank you

hey nelson i have a question that might

seem off track from this but in a way

it's not i guess i

because it all has to do with peace of

mind and when you meditate you know

getting rid of those crazy thoughts and

stuff and

but um

family or all of them have this fear of

the month of october

because there have been a couple of

deaths in our family by younger people

and you know

and you know like my dad was he was in

his 30s and my niece my

my sister's daughter

she was also in her 30s you know but in

any case so everybody you know we have

this little uneasiness about the month

of october so i don't know

i guess it's a superstition

you know so it's something to be six

hard

you know it's just that underlying thing

that's there in the month of october

your input would be on something like

that

yeah there's a tendency for the mind to

make certain kind of correlations and

connections

but there's no causality there it's just

a correlation it's just that okay that

happens in the month of october but

there's no real truth to that there's no

real you know causation based on that so

my my immediate uh

advice there would be to six r that let

go of that idea because this

thing like it's a form of clinging to

rights and rituals when you think about

superstitions and things like that

because what it's saying is

on the flip side of that what it's

saying is for example you know you think

that you have a lucky sock or you you

you you know carry around a four-leaf

clover and somehow that's going to

change your fortunes or that psalm are

you going to change your luck

that is in violation of the

understanding of the law of causation

because what you're saying is you're

going beyond the law of causation to say

that if i just do this then you know

all that karma and everything else won't

matter

in other words it is effort

it is intention

mental effort verbal effort

uh physical effort whatever it might be

it is that action that gives rise to the

karma so people who seem to be

very well to do or wealthy and things

like that and it seems like you know

they either just inherited

inherited it or they just you know

didn't do a lot of work doesn't mean

that in that particular life it it

doesn't mean that they just got it out

of nowhere it means that in a previous

life

they had generosity

they had the purity of mind and they

were always keeping the precepts

and so because of that it it generated

into a more wholesome state of mind

whether it's in this particular life or

in the next life

you have to understand it that any kind

of superstition like that would be a

form of clinging to a specific kind of

view related to rights and rituals and

just let that go by 6r okay well that

makes it yeah yeah okay

if i could just convince them

you know my sisters too

yeah well that'd be that's great thank

you

welcome

nelson i wanted to ask you one question

the um

let me see

was um

just it was like about relaxing you know

and feeling and stuff like that do you

think that there was any instruction by

the buddha to actually do anything

personally in the meditation or would

you say that

uh it was a direction for watching

and observing

primarily

so yeah that's that's always been that's

always been my own emphasis in teaching

is whenever i have a retreat or whenever

i tell students is

there's two things you do just observe

and six are and by the end of the

retreat you're gonna get tired of me

saying the same thing over and over and

over again but it's important to know

you're just being aware of what's going

on with your mind's attention everything

else will take care of itself because of

light intention of loving kindness here

because you're generating the experience

and so on anything beyond that except

for the six hours then that's an

experience of trying too hard making too

much of an effort the observing which is

the right mindfulness the mindfulness

that we talk about is the bare awareness

of what is arising and passing away in

reference to your attention

if you direct your attention to

something

and or rather you're saying that the

attention can be controlled

then now you're making too much effort

now you're putting the sense of self

there now you're putting the sense of

making it personal

but if you just see the attention itself

as being impersonal and you're observing

how the attention moves and then nudging

it along with the six r's and so on then

it naturally gives rise to

right collectedness to samadhi

yeah

um and also say uh

you know in india we deal an awful lot

with

one point concentration and having them

come over to experiment and find out

uh what

the tranquil wisdom insight meditation

is actually all about

and um

in going to the breathing instructions

if you look at the breathing

instructions there's not anything here

at all

from section 18 through

you know the dyads of the whole thing

that says do something it says

experience something it says obs you

know the instructions to observe but

it's just talking about experiencing so

there really isn't anything it says to

actually do

and being a being a watcher is all it's

really asking us to do is to watch right

rising and passing away the phenomena

yeah

yeah right exactly

that's why it's such an easy easy

practice that's why it's so effective

because you are training yourself by

watching how the mind's attention is

moving

the mind is teaching itself when it does

that oh yeah if you if you try to

control the situation

uh that's where things get haywire

basically it just it just creates

more hindrances

and it brings up more personalization

when especially when you have one point

of concentration because they're they're

trying to direct the attention somewhere

and then that causes not only just pain

in the head but it also causes pain in

daily life because now you see that you

suppress the hindrances

and then when you come out of it the

hindrances come back up you know the

metaphor i use is like it's like you

have a beach ball and you put it under

the water and you suppress it and then

you let go and it comes back with full

force and you don't know what to do with

that

exactly

and the other thing that i found over

here was that if i talk to someone about

uh you know the mindfulness being an

observation and not concentration i keep

saying it's not concentration instead we

started saying it's a refined uh it's a

redefined

retuned form of concentration with

specifics and then they settled down

you know but they get so upset if you

say that i've been concentrating you

know for 15 20 years and i i have to do

this you know and then they think don't

you can't take concentration away i'm

not taking it away i'm refining it and

retuning it and then they settle down

it's just kind of fun yeah

that's the that's the sneakiness of uh i

try

there was one other thing if you're if

your people are afraid for october you'd

go and read you know read the um the

suta mn 131 the bhararakatasuta

and give up the past for the month of

october and give up the future worry and

the concern for the past and take trika

turn maybe take a turn living in the

present time just as a little crystal

ball a crystal carriage carrying you

through the month of october the kids

will love the story they do here anyway

to just be able to not think about covid

forget what happened in the past let go

of all of the grief and things that

we've dealt with over here and

it's still going on here it's not the

same as in the states at all you know

yeah but

131 is really helpful

uh to

look at the present time

and um they're specific in the pros in

that one poetry if you can i don't know

if you have the book it's really the

short

poem that is the one fine night

the 1999 you're talking about uh it's um

one that's right yeah wait a minute it's

it's uh what is that like this one's

right here

i didn't know if you had the book

sitting there let not a person revive

the past or on the future hold us hopes

for the past has been left behind and

the future has not been reached

instead with insight let him see each

presently arisen state

and let him know it and be sure of it

invincibly and unshakably that this pure

mind this this clear mind really exists

and just keep relaxing and watch

and it gets fun it gets really fun

thank you wonderful thank you for that

nelson

yes um

yeah

you talked about um just observing the

movement of the mind

and

i was wondering

how the object of meditation

fits in with that particular

yeah there is some level of right effort

which is to say

what you're doing is you're observing

how mind's attention moves so that's the

mindfulness part of it the initial

application of thought which is to

ignite the loving kindness to

intentionalize the loving kindness that

then is your object of meditation

and you are

you're observing the object of

meditation and then you're observing

unless in the sense you're observing the

loving kindness you're observing the

flow of love and kindness your spiritual

friend or in radiating or whatever it

might be

and then while in that process of

observation the mind might get detracted

from its object it might just go to

somewhere else so in that process of

observing your mind is open enough to be

able to catch

that

there has been a distraction that there

has been a hindrance

really the the starting point is

observing but in the way of observing

where the observation itself itself

or the attention itself

strengthens the collectedness of mind so

the more you're able to observe the

loving kindness so you bring it up in

the beginning that's the first channel

you bring it up with the intention of

loving kindness with a verbalization or

whatever it might be but once you have

then you're just watching it and then

you're just observing it and

eventually the mind becomes collected

the more you observe it so the two

things that you're doing really are the

observation which is the mindfulness of

that

object and the second is the six r's the

right effort

when you see the mind is distracted you

let go

of that distraction uh so you recognize

it you let go you relax and then you

smile to uplift the mind and you come

back so there is that right effort of

coming back to observing the object of

because um in the instructions from

banky my understanding is that there

always is an odd object of meditation

yeah

yeah whether it's loving kindness

compassion or any of the brahmaviharas

or quiet mind there is still an object

there that you're just observing

and the object's um purpose is

when the mind drifts

then you

being collected by returning to the

object

i just wanted to clarify that because

what you were saying was just observe

but there is always kind of a touchstone

for the observation yes

that's a very good that's a very good

addition to it because the whole point

of the as you just said the whole point

of the object is to keep the mind tied

to something so the way i kind of look

at it is like the it's like a a rock

that uh is the string is tied to it and

it's like a balloon so it might go away

from its object but then it comes back

with the six hour process

um and so when we talk about the

unification of mind for example the

ekagata that said in pali it's really

that the mind or the attention is no

longer scattered by it so even if

it gets

if it gets askew if it gets detracted

there is something to return to which is

the object i said yeah okay

i was looking for the anchor anchor you

see the anchor

in the one point concentration got

really serious because you had to tie

yourself to it and fix on it and think

what i've run into

delson is people come actually think

that that object is going to give them

the answer to nibana it's very serious

we actually ran in bunty and i ran into

a woman in australia and i had asked him

the question in the morning does it ever

occur

for a breathing meditation to believe

that the breath is so important if i

don't pay attention to it that i can't

breathe and then that day

one in the morning one in the afternoon

two 40-year-old women came in and said

we cannot do mental if we do not pay

attention to our breaths we will not be

able to breathe and they actually

believed it i was shocked

and then that's really

it's fascinating

no i mean yeah and that's like the

extreme form of one pointed

concentration because the whole point of

one point of concentration is

i become the meditation object itself

so my my existence

my personality is now tied to the object

of meditation which happens in yoga

which is the

the the unification or the union of the

atman with the brahman

that's a very extreme form of that yeah

but we're different with our position we

actually enter we we had a we had a

retreat in 2017 for 35 people in pohang

and malaysia and we spent three days

trying to determine if there were laws

for meditation and one of those laws

what's what is the law that is absolute

concerning an object in meditation

so you have to ask the question why do

all meditations seem to have an object

of meditation and nelson you said it

it's like it's ice it's like an anchor i

draw a picture of an anchor with a boat

and a harbor and it can't float away so

now it's safe to go to bed for the night

but you're always going to be in that

vicinity but you can't you know if we

say timey to it there it's buying into

the one point concentration you have to

be careful with that one and

and because it and the other thing is

you can't blame a teacher for this you

can't if you're sitting over here these

teachers are in front of 125 people or

try try the big the big one at 5 000

people and a teacher is teaching at

something there's 5 000 brains in front

of you and you say something even when

gowenka said it i read listen to many of

his talks are just fine okay

but but

okay he's giving instruction maybe the

right way on a subject to 5 000 people

and how do each brain hear that

you can't go around and figure that out

you see

treats it's a timely thing for the

teacher yeah

yeah

i think i think the object of meditation

is important obviously for the

meditation i mean the whole definition

of meditation is

that you have something that the mind is

thinking about i mean the very very

general basic definition

meditation

hmm we seem to have lost delson

he's from meditation which is brought up

[Music]

what i was saying is the the the whole

point about the meditation i mean the

general definition of meditation is that

the mind as something that it collects

itself around so to speak the attention

is collected around something

but

the whole point here is to see that you

don't become your object of meditation

you

[Music]

and

even the intention of loving kindness

even the intention of compassion is not

your intention and this might this might

go over some people's heads but when you

get deeper and deeper into the practice

you see that even intention

is impersonal and you don't take the

jhana you don't take the meditation

personally it's all happening because of

the right causes and conditions coming

together

so the observation helps to keep that

distance of self

in that process

and the 6r helps to keep the mind

let's say collected or

unified not to the extent of becoming it

but unified as a way of keeping the mind

clear

the whole point is to bring the mind to

a level of clarity and depth so that

insight can arise

because if you become one one pointed

and you suppress as i was saying you not

only suppress the mind and the

hindrances but you suppress the

opportunity for any kind of insights to

arise naturally

thank you nelson uh let me jump in here

we uh we have been doing some interviews

with delson over the last week or so

and i'm gonna make some videos out of

all those things and we get into some

really deep dharma stuff

we get into some

upcoming neuroscience research that

delsin has participated in

and

we talk about dependent origination we

talk about narota cessation i mean you

name it we're getting into it

and the first video where bill nelson

introduces himself and his background

and gives us a thumbnail sketch of the

jonas and so on

that's going to come out tomorrow at 1

p.m same time we started this video here

and i'm just putting

[Music]

i am putting that in the chat so that

you can get a link to that but tomorrow

at 1 pm uh that will be our first

release of these interviews and there

should be a number of them to follow

and of course we will have a recording

of this zoom call up as well so

let's take a few more questions and uh i

think we're getting pretty long here

uh anybody else got a few more for one

yeah i just wanted to uh

offer you know kind of like a metaphor

for

really deep practice

uh in the sense of

looking of a you had the balloon in the

water and it made me think of like a uh

very small bubble at the bottom of a

swimming pool

where consciousness is

coming into formation

and as the bubble rises it gets

larger and larger and larger and it's

and it's easier and easier to see

and so in the process of practice we're

seeing these large thought bubbles take

place and as the sensitivity grows

you see them

at a earlier earlier level or a smaller

level and so the the practice becomes

watching those

formations maybe at a tiny level and

then maybe six arring at that time but

the

the metaphor of the bubble

in the pool was is one that people can

relate to and i i find it very useful i

wanted to share that that is very useful

thank you for that and then there comes

a point when there are no bubbles at all

and that's the cessation

oh you went on mute you went on mute

there hey please yes that's true

any other questions

yeah i have another question um

thank you about

the english terms of like unification

of mind or collectedness

so i always wondered since

uh and and on the other side also the

sutas we hear uh the mind being

scattered uh outwardly or externally

this

collectedness or

unification

or scatteredness it implies that there

is something that can be at

different places at the same time

but like isn't it that mind's attention

uh can only be with one thing at a time

there is nothing that can be collected

unified because there is only one thing

at a time

and uh

and also

that doesn't mean that it's more like

calming i'm sorry to interrupt but my

internet just went down for a second so

i didn't hear the whole flow of the

question can you please

do it again it's

perfect that's perfect yeah it's about

you mentioned it ekagata

and in english we we say collectedness

mostly we don't use concentration of

course but we have collectedness or

unification but actually there isn't

anything that is that can be scattered

or unified because mind's attention can

only be

with one thing at a time

so is

is isn't it kind of misleading to to to

to think of it as something that can be

collected or unified

and isn't it more uh

proper more more um

useful to think of it like calming

calming down or becoming tranquil like

my the movement of mind's attention is

calming down

i like that interpretation that's a very

good interpretation because you're right

the attention can only go to one object

at a time

it just feels like the mind is scattered

it just feels like the attention is

scattered but what you're really doing

is you're redirecting the attention back

to its object so

i like that idea of tranquilizing and

relaxing because then that's

just calming down

the the mental energy of the

distractedness and then bringing it back

that's a good way of putting it i think

it helps other people understand as well

yeah yeah okay thank you

i i think uh it also depends on when you

look

uh at the term ekagata how you break it

up uh aika means one but ekaga is

tranquility

right

and calmness yeah yeah okay thank you

i always wanted to ask that question

uh david i have a question for you can i

ask you a question

i don't

i know you're the one person that might

know but delson might know too what is

the suta about scattered internally or

externally do you remember dawson

all right

yeah i know what you're talking about

tonight

that's what well

that's the suit it explains what it

means to be scattered externally is that

your mind won't stay in and in watching

see

when

when you haven't you're sitting you're

sitting here okay and you're

watching here with the peripheral vision

inside and then you can't stay there and

you keep going outside of this boundary

outside towards

towards hindrances and other thoughts

and everything that's a scattered mind

externally but i can't remember david

what did it say about the scattered mind

internally remember we used to do that

suit a lot

done it a lot

is that the upper class 128 no no it's

not 128. um it's not 128. that's some

different

that a scattered internal and i'm trying

to remember the name of it i can't

remember it but there is one that is

or the early hundreds and i'm trying to

look at i can't figure it out what it is

there's one thirty eight which

one let me try that talks about

restlessness

okay wait a second

i mean

there's something related to that

there's something related to that which

talks about a mind or an attention that

is non-dispersed and from that i

interpret it as saying on scattered

meaning the mind doesn't

doesn't become swayed

here and there by some kind of

distraction that's right it wasn't 138.

wait a minute is um

here you go i got it i got it

138 okay

and what it has is scattered externally

or stuck internally

and the cause is craving

keeping attention on the distraction is

a bad thing

you see and it talks about distracted

and scattered

externally and then it goes over and

says

not

distracted or scattered external it

gives you an explanation at section 11

10 and 11. that would help someone who

thinks they're

you know

what we were just what you were just

talking about if you go back to that

uh that's my imagination one

thirty eight you said

no it wasn't 138 with a second

uh it's um and it's the one about

agitate agitation is what this is about

agitation

that would i say would i say it was did

somebody hear me say whatever they said

you said they saved

what i'm trying to find it again

page

1075. yeah 1001

1074 is udacivenga the exposition of a

summary hint it's the topic is hindrance

management

agitation and non-agitation it's a

really good one to read about

uh the hindrances very very good one

yeah

and the stuck internally the stuck

internally i i would say is the way i

interpret that is

not to take the meditation seriously

it sounds very counter-intuitive but

it's basically not to make it a big deal

just let things flow

and let this just happen

yeah i would say

that's going along with what it's saying

exactly yeah

yeah not stuck internally is when you're

doing you're sitting and calmly doing it

yeah going through the journals

okay i think that's uh i think that's a

wrap yeah

what does everybody think

all right any less questions or i'll go

all right we have a thumbs up

okay

going once

going twice

okay it's a wrap

thank you very much gelson

topic today was about giving so go and

give and give off

thank you

from damasuke production

goodbye thank you bye

follow those precepts

thank you nelson

thank you

thank you david

thank you thank you thank you

thank you

[Music]

you

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

okay

looking good

all right should i get started

all right let's get started

okay so today i am going to be reading

from majminikaya 142.

this is the the kina vibhanga sutta

that is the exposition of offerings

thus if i heard on one occasion

the blessed one was living in the sakyan

country at kapalavatu in negrodus park

then mahapad pajapati gotami

took a new pair of clothes and went to

the blessed one

mahapajapati gotomi is the

is the maternal aunt of the buddha and

after the

after the bodhisattva at the time

his mother passed away uh

she took care of him

and she was his uh

was his maternal aunt but she also was

his

uh stepmother

after paying homage to him she sat down

at one side and said to the blessed one

venerable sir this new pair of clothes

thoughts has been spun by me woven by me

especially for the blessed one venerable

sir let the blessed one accept it from

me out of compassion

when this was said the blessed one told

her

give it to the sangha gotami

when you give it to the sangha both i

and the sangha will be honored

a second time and a third time she said

to the blessed one

venerable sir accepted from me out of

compassion

a second time and the third time the

blessed one told her

give it to the sangha gotami

when you give it to the sangha both i

and the sangha will be honored

then the venerable ananda said to the

blessed one venerable sir

let the blessed one accept new pair of

clots from mahapa japati gautami

maha pajapati gautami has been very

helpful to the blessed one venerable sir

as his mother's sister she was his nurse

his foster mother

the one who gave him milk

she suckled the blessed one when his own

mother died

the blessed one too has been very

helpful to mahaprabhu gautami venerable

sir it is owing to the blessed one that

mahaprabhu

has done for has gone for refuge to the

badal the dhamma and the sangha

it is owing to the blessed one that

mahaprabhu

abstains from killing living beings

from taking what is not given from

misconduct in sensual pleasures from

false speech and from wine liquor and

intoxicants which are the basis of

negligence

so in other words she has her precepts

in order

she maintains her precepts

it is owing to the blessed one that

mahaprabhu

possesses unwavering confidence in the

buddha the dhamma and the sangha

and that she possesses the virtues loved

by the noble ones

it is owing to the blessed one that

mahapa japati

gautami is free from doubt about

suffering

about the origin of suffering

about the cessation of suffering and

about the way leading to the cessation

of suffering

the blessed one has been very helpful

to mahaprabhu gautami

so this indicates that at this time

based on what ananda is saying

uh was a stream enter because these are

the five factors

of the stream enter that is to say

they have

complete conviction

in the buddha in the dhamma and in the

sangha

they maintain their precepts and they

are wholesome in thought

words and in deeds

and when they do break a precept it

would be a minor precept they

immediately

make a confession or make a

determination

that

they will not break that precept again

and the most important part of this

is that

she has no doubt about the four noble

truths so this is one way to understand

how somebody might be a stream enter of

course there's the other three the other

two feathers along with that that is the

better of the personality view the

belief in the personal self that goes

away

and the fetter of clinging to rights and

rituals with the belief that they will

lead to nibana

that goes away as well

that is so ananda that is so when one

person owing to another has gone for

refuge to the buddha the dhamma and the

sangha i say that it is not easy for the

former to repay the latter by paying

homage to him

rising up for him

according him reverential salutation and

polite services

and by providing robes arms food resting

places and medicinal requisites

in other words

by having that conviction in the buddha

the dhamma and the sangha that in itself

is a great thing as soon as you come to

that realization it is indeed difficult

to repay

the teacher or the sangha to be to what

they have provided you because

what they have provided you is

along with the other factors of stream

entry

the understanding of the dhamma to some

extent they have provided you with the

possibility of

no more rebirths in the lower realms and

that is a wonderful thing

that is a huge thing and

all you can do is

repay the sangha

with whatever you want to offer them

with that generosity

that attitude of generosity is really

also

imbued with the attitude of gratitude in

other words

once you understand the scope of

why it is important to

give to the sangha

then you understand how it affects your

own practice

when you give to the sangha when you

give to anybody with a wholesome

intention when you give to somebody with

an attitude of gratitude without any

expectation

with generosity without

having any expectation of any kind of

reward

that in itself is a reward that in

itself is uplifting to the mind

if you think about the times when you

have been

generous to somebody just because it

felt good

you immediately have an uplifted mind

and this is one of the recollections you

can do for your meditation practice

number one you have the precepts which

you continue to maintain

but number two you think about all the

times you've been generous

that generosity immediately brings a

wholesome intention in the mind

it brings clarity in the mind and that

provides

a perfect

situation for your mind to experience

the meditation

and so he goes on to say

when one person owing to another has

come to abstain

from killing living beings

from taking what is not given

from misconduct in sensual pleasures

from false speech and from wine liquor

in intoxicants

in other words when one maintains the

precepts

i say that it is not easy for the former

to repay the latter

by paying homage to him

by paying homage to him rising up for

him

according him reverential salutation and

polite services

and by providing robes arms food resting

places and medicinal requisites

when one person owing to another has

come to un to possess unwavering

confidence in the buddha

the dhamma and the sangha

and to possess the virtues loved by

noble ones i say that it is not easy for

the former

to repay the latter by paying homage to

him

let's go back here paying homage to him

rising up for him

according him

according him reverential salutation and

polite services

and by providing

robes arms food resting places and

medicinal requisites

when one person owing to another has

become free from doubt about suffering

about the origin of suffering about the

cessation of suffering and about the way

leading to the cessation of suffering i

say that it is not easy for him for for

the former

to repay the ladder by paying homage to

him

[Music]

rising up for him according him

reverential salutation and polite

services

and by providing robes arms food resting

places and medicinal requisites

now he gets into the different types of

personal offerings he says

there are fourteen kinds of personal

offerings ananda

one gives a gift to the

accomplished and fully enlightened this

is the first kind of personal offering

one gives a gift to a pacheco buddha but

is a solitary buddha

it's one who becomes self-enlightened

one who becomes

aware of the dhamma and fully realized

but does not go on to teach he doesn't

have

the interest inclination or capacity to

teach so this is a solitary buddha

this is the second kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift

a gift to an arahat disciple

of the tata this is the third kind of

personal offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of arahitship

this is the fourth kind of offering

so here one is the arahat with fruition

and the other is the

with path

this is the fourth kind of personal

offering one gives a gift to a

non-returner

this is the fifth kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of non-return so that's the

anagami with path and origami with

fruition this is the sixth kind of

personal offering

one gives a gift to a once returner

sakadagami that is the seventh kind of

personal offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of one's return

so that is the sakuragami with path

this is

the eighth kind of personal offering

one gives a gift to a stream enterer

this is the ninth kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization

of the fruit of stream entry

and so that again is stream enter with

path and stream entry with fruition

this is the tenth kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to one outside

the dispensation who is free from lust

for central pleasures

this is the 11th kind of personal

offering

so this could be any other kind of

ascetic or

any kind of monk outside of

the dharma outside of buddhism

and even if you give them an offering

you give it with gratitude you give it

with generosity

and that's still considered to be an

effective offering it says who is free

from lust for central pleasure so

that is to say that even if it is

somebody who is outside of the buddha's

dispensation

they have a certain level of wisdom they

still have a certain level of

understanding which leads them to

no longer attaching clean

essential pleasures

they might be doing their own thing in

terms of religious or spiritual

uh efforts but they are on the way to

trying to get away from attaching to

spiritual uh attaching to central

pleasures so it's still a valid offering

to give

one gives a gift to a virtuous ordinary

person this is a 12th kind of personal

offering

one gives a gift to an immoral ordinary

person so that's interesting one gives a

gift to an an immoral ordinary person

this is the 13th

kind of personal offering

even if somebody is immoral maybe you

don't know it but if somebody is immoral

and you still give with generosity you

still give with the attitude of

gratitude that still uplifts your mind

the whole point here is how how do you

intend or what is your intention when

you give whether it's

food or clothing or shelter or medicines

or anything maybe it's just

giving a ride to somebody who needs a

ride to the train station or to the

airport

maybe it's just somebody who needs a

smile it doesn't matter if the person is

moral or immoral what matters is you

remain on in a wholesome state of mind

and as easy as giving giving away your

smile you immediately uplift the other

person with that smile so

actually both yourself and the other

person are uplifted for that moment

one gives a gift to an animal

this is the 14th kind of personal

offering

so you can give to a pet you can give to

dog or a cat or

an animal you see on the way to ducks to

squirrels

whatever it might be those are still

living beings and giving to living

beings

it provides an uplifting mind an

uplifted mind

hear in ananda by giving a gift to an

animal

the offering may be expected to repay a

hundred fold

what that really means and this is

according to the commentary

is when you give to an animal just by

sharing your food to

sharing your food with a dog or a cat or

a pet or whatever it might be

that offering may be expected to repay a

hundred fold that means that for the

next hundred existences or at some point

a hundred different existences

you are expected to have an uplifted

state of being

by giving a gift to an immoral ordinary

person the offering may be expected to

repay a thousand-fold by giving a gift

to a virtuous ordinary person the

offering may be expected to repay a

hundred thousand-fold

by giving a gift to one outside the

dispensation who was free from lust for

central pleasures

the offering may be expected to repay a

hundred thousands

a hundred thousand times a hundred

thousand fold so

you can do the math on that one

by giving a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of stream entry

the offering may be expected to repay

incalculable

incalculably

immeasurably

in other words

there is a hierarchy in terms of how you

give and who you give to

and eventually when you give to the

other attainers

whether it's a stream enter whether it's

sakadagami there is

a level of fruition uh of that giving so

it would be

it would give more fruit to give to

sakuragami to then to a stream enter or

to an onagami then to a sakuragami or to

an arahat then to an onigami and of

course to a pacheco buddha or buddha but

we don't have those nowadays so

you know besides you don't really know

who who that attainer is whether they

have stream entry or not whether they

have sakuragami or not whether they are

in anagami or not whether they're in

arahat or not

regardless you still give

and as the buddha was saying earlier

when you give to the sangha

you honor him and the sangha so whenever

you give to a monastic it's not you're

giving it just specifically

to that particular monastic you are

offering this

as a way of repayment for the

the benefits that you received from the

dharma through the sangha and through

the buddha so when you offer something

to the sangha or to a monastic you're

actually offering it to that monastic

who represents the entire sangha so they

will accept it gladly on behalf of the

sangha

but they don't accept it for themselves

it's not something that is personal in

that sense it is for the entire sangha

then should be said about giving to a

stream enter what should be said about

giving a gift to one who has entered

upon the way to the realization of the

fruit of one's return

way once returner

the one who has entered upon the way to

the realization of the fruit of

non-return

who a non-returner

to one who has entered upon the way to

the realization of the fruit

what should be said about giving a gift

to at the target accomplished and fully

enlightened

now he gets into a different category of

different kinds of offerings he says

there are seven kinds of offerings made

to the sangha anandam

one gives a gift to the sangha of both

bekus and bikunis headed by the buddha

this is the first kind of offering made

to the sangha

this is interesting so he says or rather

the text says bhikkhus and bikunins

but a little historical perspective on

this it was really at the request of

mahaprabhu

gautami who wanted to go forth and

become

a monastic

and at this point in time she is a lay

person who wants to offer these clots to

the buddha

so it seems to suggest then that this

edition of the bikunis came out came

about later just to

give clarification that it is for the

bikus and for the bikunis

um even though

the bikini

the the idea of bikunis uh didn't yet

come into being

until mahapajapati and

other women are uh with her requested

that they go they'd be allowed to go

forth

so then he says one gives a gift to a

sangha of both because and bikunis after

the tata has attained final nibana

in other words there is the offering

that's given

when buddha is still around

it's given to both

the sangha of both bikunis and bikus

when he is still around and their second

type is when he has continued on into or

passed on into prairie nebana and so

after the buddha the sangha still lives

and so it is right to still offer the

sangha even after

the buddha has passed on

here's another one one gives a gift to a

sangha of bhikkhus

this is the third kind of offering made

to the sangha one gives a gift to a

sangha of bhikkhunis so separately one

to the male monastics and separately

one to the female monastics this is the

fourth kind of offering mate the sangha

one gives a gift saying appoint so many

bekus and bikunis for me from the sangha

this is the fifth kind of offering made

to the sangha

one gives a gift saying appoint so many

bekus for me from the sangha

this is the sixth kind of offering

made to the sangha

one gives a gift saying appoint so many

bhikkhunis from me from the sangha

this is the seventh kind of offering

made to the sangha

in future times ananda there will be

members of the clan who are yellow necks

immoral of evil character

people will give gifts to those immoral

persons

for the sake of the sangha

even then i say

an offering made to the sangha is

incalculable immeasurable

and i say that in no way is a gift to a

person individually

ever more fruitful

than an offering made to the sangha so

let's break that down

in future times ananda there will be

members of the clan who are yellow necks

immoral of evil character

so these are people who aren't part of

the sangha but they wear the yellow

robes and they roam about begging for

arms and things like that you see that

around

some parts of asia specifically in some

parts of india

and they might be evil of evil character

in the sense that they don't really

follow the precepts and they'll be

immoral

but then people will give gifts to them

for the sake of the sangha even then

because of your

your pure wholesome intention

that purifies that whole process and so

there is an intention of the giver that

purifies and uplifts the mind

even if the recipient

is unwholesome even if the recipient

is immoral and of

not such a great character and then he

says

and i say that in no way is a gift to a

person individually ever more fruitful

than an offering made to the sangha

in other words even if you give to an

arahat with fruition

and you're giving it something to them

personally

you're saying that this is for you

specifically

that's not any more fruitful

than giving something that is meant for

the entire sangha even if that sangha

doesn't have even a stream enter doesn't

have even one stream enter because

you're offering something collectively

to the sangha for their benefit

rather than

rather than having it given individually

to somebody with the idea that this will

benefit just one person it makes more

sense in terms of giving it to a

collective group

or giving it to

that sangha that will benefit even much

there are another four kinds of

purification

of offering

what for

there is the offering that is purified

by the giver not by the receiver

there is the offering that is given

that is purified by the receiver and not

by the giver

there is the offering that is purified

neither by the giver nor by the receiver

there is the offering that is purified

both by the giver and by the receiver

the brother is going to go into how

these four come to be he says

and how was the offering purified by the

giver

not by the receiver

here the giver is virtuous of good

character and the receiver is immoral of

evil character thus the offering is

purified by the giver

not by the receiver

and how is the offering purified by the

receiver not by the giver here the giver

is immoral of evil character and the

receiver is virtuous of good character

thus

the offering is purified by the receiver

and not by the giver

and how is the offering purified neither

by the giver nor by the receiver here

the giver is immoral of evil character

and the receiver is immoral of evil of

evil character

thus the offering is purified neither by

the giver nor by the receiver

and how is the offering purified both by

the receiver and by the giver and by the

receiver

here the giver is virtuous of good

character and the receiver is virtuous

of good character thus the offering is

purified both by the giver and by the

receiver

these are the four kinds of purification

of offering

so here the understanding should be that

when you give

give with a wholesome intention

give with the mind purified by the

precepts

give with the mind that is purified by

good behavior by good character

because

that purifies the offering even if the

recipient

might be of immoral character

might not be taking the precepts might

be breaking the precepts whatever that

might be

the offering is still valid because it's

been purified by somebody

with wholesome intentions

verified by somebody who has

taken and continues to maintain

the precepts

so before you give it's important to

understand your intention

given

it's important to understand that you

don't want to give with a with a heart

that is

muddled by breaking of the precepts

given by a confused mind given by

an agitated mind given by a restless

mind given by a craving mind take the

precepts determine that you will

maintain the precepts have and hold some

intention and then give

before we finish this off i wanted to

share an interesting story now this

isn't from the dharma but it's an

interesting story nonetheless

and it's a story from actually the

upanishads interestingly enough and it's

i'll just i'll just read it and you just

get a sense of

the ancient indian ethos

at the time of the buddha and before of

what it meant to give and to be generous

once all the descendants of

prajapati that is brahma

that's the mahabrahma

the devas the men and the asuras or the

devas the humans and the asuras

lived with him for some time as students

and one day the devas approached

prajapati and said teach us

and in reply he uttered one syllable da

and then he asked have you understood

and they said

yes we have understood

you said to us

which means in sanskrit which means to

be self-controlled

the instruction given to the devas is

it's a wondrous place being in the sixth

century's heavens and you can get

carried away with pl uh pleasures

you know you might party be partying all

night and all day long and things like

that but

the way to having better peace of mind

more peace of mind and and

having a more wholesome intention is to

be self-controlled be mindful

and regulate the kinds of pleasures that

you're experiencing

then the humans went to pajapati

and said teach us and he said to them

the same syllable da and he asked him

have you understood

and they said yes we have understood to

us you are saying

another word of meaning being generous

providing and offering dhana

and he said yes you have understood so

what's interesting here is for the devas

the instruction is to be self-controlled

to have some level of regulation

and for the humans those who are on the

human plane the way to a mind that is

peaceful a mind that is wholesome

is to be generous is to give and give

with the heart

where it's purified by the precepts

give with a heart that has no

expectation of reward because the reward

itself

is the uplifting mind that arises the

uplifted mind that arises from that

generosity from that

and then finally he says the same thing

to the asuras

and they say what and he asked what have

you understood and they say

which means compassion the way out of

the asura realm is to develop

compassion to develop love and kindness

that was an interesting story from there

but it gives some clarity on the

importance

of generosity the importance of ghana

and when you give with the heart that is

purified by the precepts

it purifies that offering and it

purifies and further uplifts the mind

so that it is stabilized enough for

collectedness

which then gives rise to

a better samadhi practice better

experience of the janas which gives

better clarity and ultimately gives rise

to panya insight

and ultimately the experience of nibana

the first few steps towards nirvana is

maintaining a virtuous mindset

and being generous

that is what the blessed one said

when the sublime one had said that the

teacher said further

now he's speaking in verse he says

when a virtuous person

to an immoral person gives with trusting

heart a gift righteously obtained

placing faith righteously obtained means

that it's something that you have you

haven't stolen it you haven't gotten it

out of immoral means

placing faith that the fruit of action

is great the giver's virtue

is what purifies the offering

when an immoral person to a virtuous

person gives with untrusting heart a

gift

unrighteously obtained

nor places faith

that the fruit of action is great

the receiver's virtue purifies the

offering so even if an immoral person is

giving

if the person who is receiving is of an

uplifted mind

is of a wholesome nature

the nature of their mind will purify

that offering

when an immoral person to an immoral

person gives we're trusting untrusting

heart

a gift unrighteously obtained nor places

faith that the fruit of action is great

neither virtue pure neither's virtue

purifies the offering so

basically even in that process of giving

if it's given from one immoral person to

the other

neither is really uplifted by it

and then when a virtuous person to a

virtuous person gives with trusting

heart a gift righteously obtained

facing faith that the fruit of action is

great

that gift i will say i say they will

come to full fruition

when a passionless person

through a passionless person gives

with trusting heart a gift righteously

obtained

placing faith at the fruit of action is

great

that gift i say is the best of worldly

gifts

when he says a passionless person to a

passionless person gives

he's talking about an arahat he's

talking about one arahat giving to a

another arahat

even though their minds are both

uplifted and so on they don't really

need to further uplift their mind but

that's one of the best gifts that is the

best of worldly gifts as the buddha says

so for the arahat there is no more

coming to being and so when they accept

a gift they're not accepting from that

sense of a person they're not accepting

from a sense of a being

but rather

that gift in itself

is purified that gift or that offering

is purified

just for the

sake that it is an arahat providing to

another arahat however they don't have

any expectations anyway

they won't have an intention that may

this gift provide me benefit because

there is no more coming to being for

them there is no sense of being for them

they have destroyed all idea of a

personhood

they have destroyed all idea of a self

that if that is affected by that

and so their mind is continuously

uplifted

and so even when they're giving

to another arahant there's nothing going

on except that it is a great gift it is

a wonderful gift because

both people are not only virtuous

but they have completely destroyed the

paints and fetters and that therefore

super purifies if you will that gift

that is the end of the suta

[Music]

does anybody have any questions

tillerson i have one question

[Music]

is donna to a

noble person

because the noble person knows the value

of ghana

of more effect it will have more effect

it was told in the sutta

for the reason he had practiced to the

ultimate level

he would gain more

better merits

so in such a situation

even

immoral person

how he he will get more benefits when

company entire sutra says he gets more

benefits

it says immoral person gets more

benefits

at one instance

um if i understand correctly

you're saying that how is it that the

immoral person would benefit from giving

to somebody who is moral is that your

question or to a noble disciples yes yes

yes it one at one stage it was told like

that the other state the other

instance the noble person because he

knows the value of dhana

dhana means merits

or anything and he will get more

merits

who will get more variates whether

immoral person or the noble person

or a person or a noble person

because of giving donna who will get

more merits

okay let me let me make sure i

understand the question correctly so if

a lay person

somebody who has a wholesome intention

gives to a noble one that is to say

either a monastic or in this case

somebody who has an

attainment if they're both

if they're both virtuous obviously then

that purifies the gift that purifies the

offering

and that person is uplifted

but in the case of one who might be

immoral or of not such a great character

and they give to somebody who is a

monastic

that gift is still purified by that

monastic uh or by that noble one or that

that person who has the attainment

because that person the receiver's mind

is uplifted

but i will go a step further and say

because of the fact that they gave

to a noble disciple because of the fact

that they gave to somebody

the very act of giving which is the

intention of giving even if the person

was not virtuous it will purify their

mind

at some point or another that's still

some kind of karmic action at play even

if they're giving to somebody of who the

receiver who is of a noble mind

one who is uplifted

at some point or another it will purify

their mind at some point or another it

will uplift their mind

but what has to be understand started

here is that when the giver is of an

impure mind

they are not the ones that are purifying

the offering the offering or the gift is

purified by the receiver

with that pure mind

[Music]

but more merits are there for the noble

person because he knows the value of

dhana

that is my contention could you please

agree

more merits will be there only for the

receiver

more merits will be there for the

receiver if the noble person knows the

values

okay

well according to the suta it's saying

that there are levels of there are

levels of merit depending upon who you

give to so that seems to that seems to

align with what you're saying

or you're what you're saying seems to

align with what the scoop is more

medicines are there for the noble person

more merits are there for the noble

person well yes

because he is virtuous he's more

virtuous and also he knows the value of

the donna

okay i see what you said

also conveys that's what i want to

convey

okay

well i think uh i think here uh when

somebody receives with uh gratitude or

when a noble person receives

i think the merit really uh the

importance of the merit is rarely with

the

with the with the giver more than the

receiver in this case because the

receiver if it's a noble disciple if

it's a monastic they're receiving on

behalf of the sangha

and so the merit that has been been

generated from giving to the sangha

really goes to the receiver because all

they're doing is repaying the debt of

dhamma to them

thank you that is okay

thank you

you're welcome

nelson

yes

[Music]

what sort of sprung to mind for me at

the moment is

every time that i

because my wife and i just had a baby so

coming to listen to a talk involves me

asking a question or can i go and listen

to this talk so every time my wife says

hey of course no problem is that that's

the form of dhana isn't it in some ways

like she's giving me like the gift of

access to dharma she's giving her

she's giving you permission to listen

yes yes we're giving me permission to

leave her to look after the baby i guess

but she's giving me permission she's

given me permission in some ways isn't

she

to listen to dharma is that correct

yeah she she i mean you she has she has

basically uh said go ahead and listen to

the dhamma and you know she has an

uplifted mind because of that and you

have an uplifted mind because of that

okay that in itself is a reward really

an uplifted mind

and then once you have that uplifted

mind you can use that for further

practice

hello dalton

hello

what does it mean

when the gif when it says the gift is

purified of what is the gift purified is

it that

all the merit that potentially comes

through giving it comes to to full

effect

right that's basically it so when the

gift is purified it's not like it's

purifying the gift itself but it's

purifying the mind whether it's of the

receiver or of the giver so in other

words if the

the receiver is of a pure mind has

wholesome intentions

it purifies that person but it also

purifies

the giver in some way because

the action of giving itself the

intention of giving itself will

ultimately uplift their mind at some

point or another so the very act of

giving or the very act of receiving so

if somebody is of an immoral nature

and they give to somebody who is

of an immoral nature as well neither of

them have an uplifted mind so it doesn't

really purify it but if any one of those

two or both

are

of an uplifted mind

then or of a pure mind then when they

say that the offering is purified it's

really about purification or further

purification of the mind

yeah okay thank you

hello dylson

hello

if there's a um

like a small local temple or hermitage

that only has one monk

and you give a gift are you giving to

the sangha are you giving to that one

monk who's there

you're giving to the sangha

the monk or the monastic is

representation of the sangha so when you

give you give with the idea that you're

giving to the sangha

even if it benefits that monastic

personally

nelson

um yes

i think there is a suta where it's

mentioned that one should be giving with

both hands

but of course in these modern days

one

writes a check or one

uses paypal or whatever

so i've always been wondering about

how that

effect

would be

maybe less

than

being able to give with one not one's

own

hands that's a good question and i i'll

say you know from my experience in asia

i think this is

one thing is it's a cultural thing

it's a sign of respect like when i was

in cambodia

one of the things is when they give

money to anybody

they give it with both hands

in any case they give it with both hands

or they'll give it like this

as a sign of as a sign of respect

so it's really more of showing the

reverence that you know here is maidana

and you know please accept it on behalf

of the sangha

when you're giving to a monastic or even

if you're offering it to another person

you give it with both hands and so it's

just representing that action is

representing your intention which is

wholesome

so whenever you give with uh

paypal or

bitcoin or whatever it might be

if your intention is wholesome

that's really what

at least that's how i understand it

um hello if i may i have another

question that's not related to donna

sure

it's about

thank you it's about um

about joy

in the third ayathana in the uh second

yes you're talking about the second

consciousness

yes

most of the time it's

translated as empathetic joy

you also use that

but

i i wonder if that empathetic comes not

so much from the suttas but from other

traditions or uh

maybe philosophies behind that and if

it's really empathetic joy or if it's

just joy i had this discussion just

today in a meeting with a trim friend

and

we wondered

what's more correct just only joy or

empathetic joy

i had this discussion with monty as well

while i've been here and

this is how i would clarify it

uh mudita that's really the pali word

mudita which actually just means

you know it is sometimes sympathetic joy

or sometimes empathetic joy but i would

say when you are

dealing with people when you are out and

about in your daily life that empathetic

joy is the joy you experience when

somebody has a wholesome

celebration like some kind of wholesome

success

when somebody graduates or somebody gets

married you immediately feel happy for

them you feel

joyful for them when somebody uh has uh

you know has given birth to a baby you

feel happy for them

uh so within let's say day-to-day life

that experience of joy is just being

happy for that person but the quality of

that joy within the meditation is just

that content joy it's a it's it is joy

but it's

in my experience a softer kind of joy

than you would experience let's say with

pity

which is a little more energetic and

bubbly

yeah

so uh the rendering of the word

depends a bit on if one is uh in that

formal in that meditative state or in

daily life

yeah because the reason is it's kind of

difficult to say well who are you being

happy for uh while you're in

in that experience of mudita

and that's understandable i mean if it

helps to be able to be

uh joyful by thinking about a person uh

then that's kind of empathetic joy but

i think what's more important in the

meditation is to have the quality of the

joy rather than just the

trying to fight figure out how to find

that joy having the joy in itself

uh is more than enough

yeah okay thank you very much

uh mr elsa

yes

uh sir

giving to a viparshna center is it like

giving to the sangha

yes it's still giving it's still giving

to the sangha because oh well if there

are monastics there yes exactly

no uh a vipassana center where lay

people come to do courses with

vibrational courses meditation courses

are they sangha for the

time they remain at the center

the are the fruits the same as giving to

the sangha monastics or

i would say no

you're just giving to lay people

i haven't

can i ask

i have to

the same thing okay uh

told in the upanishads also that is why

am referring again

so what do you uh what is your

what is

more when compared to the person who is

giving

this is what referred in the one of the

upanishads

instead of sangha but the question

question is did the buddha receive the

merit or did sujata receive the merit

buddha received buddha knows the value

of dhana that is why he got

enlightenment afterwards

this is what mentioned in one of the

upanishads

okay i see you're talking about the

upanishads maybe i made a mistake by

bringing up the upanishads because

outside of that whole understanding of

the upanishads

their understanding of buddhism

is different because they have a

different view

they have a view of atman and brahman

the reason i brought up the upanishads

was because it's a nice story from

ancient india about the valley of

generosity but

that doesn't validate the fact that the

upanishads have any kind of say within

buddhism because it's a completely

different philosophy it's a differently

it's a completely different viewpoint

but the idea that the buddha was the one

who received the merit i don't think

that makes sense it's fujiata who

received the merit

yes thank you

uh i had a question

would you have some suggestions about

like uh recollecting um

generosity especially

in the context of children because that

would interest me very much

in the context of children how do you

mean uh for example when

when i bring my son to bed after we we

tried to do these like meta-like

exercises of sending love bubbles and

things like that i wonder if you have

any suggestions of doing something

similar with generosity recollecting

generous thoughts or things that it was

done during the day something like along

those lines

i think that's a wonderful practice

because uh that really uplifts the mind

when you think about i mean that's

really why you do the precepts that's

really why you are generous one it

really

naturally uplifts the mind but it can be

a great gateway to loving kindness for

yourself and for others when you think

about things that you're grateful for

when you think about the things that

you've done in the past that are

wholesome

or when you think about the times you

were generous and it uplifts the mind

it's a great igniter for loving kindness

and then continuing that loving kindness

in your practice

thank you

i'm not sure i was raising my hand

but i wanted to ask you one question

when you have two um

let's put it to you this way if you have

there's a elderly project in um

near alastair in mumbai and

these people have nowhere to go they're

deathly poor very very poor

and they have no support you know the

government has nothing for them

and if one of them

was to help another one and they were

hindu

um you know isn't this

giving its

self isn't the giving itself a helping

to each other isn't that an uplifted act

oh absolutely yes and is there some kind

of purification going on when someone

steps out of line from the way people

are being treated and helps another

person in

some place like that you know and

there's also a terrible terrible

situation with a lack of housing right

now and many many people on the street

definitely deathly poor you know and so

when someone makes an effort that they

don't normally make in in the community

to help another one make have enough

food you see things like that so i can't

i can't see where both of the people are

from an immoral background and both of

them are desperate

and they do this act of giving itself to

it to each other that becomes an

uplifted act and there's purification

involved in that to some extent

maybe you can say the lowest

on the rack

if you want to

but they're both getting very happy

you know and yeah the other thing i

think it's about the yeah okay

go ahead go ahead

i think it's really about the it's

really about the act of giving itself

definitely but uh if if somebody was

poor and still was giving if somebody

that that act itself is is being

being an act of generosity to somebody

whatever little you can give that still

uplifts the mind so my contention there

if it's between two immoral people

the

the act of giving itself

will come to fruition at some point in

time but it doesn't necessarily update

their mind in that moment it's the karma

of giving that will still have some kind

of effect maybe in the next moment maybe

in a couple of moments maybe in another

lifetime whatever it might be

yeah

but helping each other i think the movie

i can't get out of my mind in this whole

subject is k-packs do you know the movie

k-pacs

it was where an alien an alien from mars

came and they were going to put him in a

they actually did they chucked him into

bellevue in new york

and then he the doctors didn't know how

to treat him and while he was there he

integrated all the patients by telling

one to help another do the laundry and

you help her make her bed and all of a

sudden because they had every had

something to do and someone to help all

of a sudden everyone was cured in the

whole world which irritated doctors no

end

okay also i just wanted to note

something if you're giving a check

to the song and you're sending it um sil

what you need to do is find a two-handed

uh a two-handed emoji to go with it

so that you're you're giving two hands

like this as you're that's a great idea

emoji that's what some of my students

started doing and um the other thing

about empathetic joy

or um

yeah empathetic joy and sympathetic joy

is what happened to the word altruism

because the translation was altruistic

meaning the strange experience

of uh not being involved with another

person and

suddenly that you hear the person just

got into school or got you know passed

an exam and you feel this uplifted

feeling that that's what i think they're

talking about

and i had a few students that really

claimed that happened

and it happened to me when i

went through that of of having this

unusual experience not understanding

what it was why am i so happy this

person i don't even know and seek a

happy you know succeeded

and i began to think maybe there's

something to this altruism

so altruistic is the other word the old

word and some people like it some people

want to call this just regular joy a

different level of it

um yeah

and go either way yeah

i'm glad you brought that up yeah

because altruistic joy is a great uh a

great uh translation too because it

doesn't have to be a person that you

know it could be just somebody a

stranger you hear oh you know they had

something great happening in their life

and you have that joy for them that's

the kind of joy that is being

experienced in daily life that's that's

the mudita

uh but then the quality of it is

experienced in the meditation yeah

i really liked your talk very nice very

clear thank you thank you thank you

hi dylsen um i have a second question

how do you know how much to give like

what is like giving too much

that's a very good question you know

there is a there's a friend of mine here

who was talking about it and uh

his uh

his brother asked the same question of

him like how much to give and he said

give until it hurts just a little bit

that was an interesting way of saying it

because it's basically

you are giving with an open heart and

you're giving

not to the extent that you go bankrupt

or you go in debt and things like that

but you give a little extra something

that you feel uh

you know will benefit the other person

thank you

[Music]

mark

i uh

i was on a retreat once and uh

someone asked the same question

and

the answer that was given was

by a physician

because you can

give too much medication as well as too

little

so his uh

his answers was that it was better

to give too much

than too little

so i just wanted to share that thank you

for your talk today it's been wonderful

thank you

[Music]

so perhaps uh people have any other

questions like questions about practice

i think nelson could take a few of those

if anybody has something

and i did find the two-handed emoji on

zoom if you

next time

i put it in the chat so take it away

jills

yeah does anybody have any questions

about the practice or

anything they've read in the supers

whatever it might be i think

practice-based questions would be great

because it'll really help you

yes

uh lately i have um

had quite a few like problems so i've

been trying to like focus

a lot of uh the meta like to work

towards myself but

i'm wondering

is it possible to combine that with um

making actual like progress in the

meditation as well you know i'm trying

to make it really like sincere

and make the strength of the meta like

the object you know almost to like

overturn some of the well uproot some of

the defilements are like quite an

abundance in my heart i'm wondering if

you could maybe comment on that please

well i want to caution you about trying

too hard because if you're going to you

know concentrate your mind on the method

you're going to start to see

that you're becoming one pointed that

method and then you're going to start to

see that you're suppressing the mind and

you might cause yourself

pain uh in the head and things like that

so i want to caution you about that let

the method flow wherever it's going to

flow whether it's to yourself

or to a spiritual friend in particular

or if you're radiating in all directions

just do that

the defilements will go when they go you

know if you make so much of an effort to

let go of the defilements

and what you're actually doing is you're

having longing which is another way of

saying craving

and you have an aversion to what's

really happening

okay

thank you

i have a question delson

yes

i've been doing um forgiveness

meditation for some weeks now

and

yes i can remember things i did wrong or

i hurt people

but

there's nothing really big coming up and

i wonder how long to do this it feels

good to do it but

i'm not sure

yeah

the the thing about forgiveness practice

is it's a great way to

kind of supercharge your loving kindness

there comes a point after you're doing

your forgiveness practice that you feel

just naturally uplifted you feel

naturally light

you feel like whatever blockage that

might be to radiating the method to a

spiritual friend

goes away

when your mind intuits that you know

i've done enough forgiveness everybody

that seems to have come in

having to be forgiven uh is forgiven and

you forgive yourself and you feel like

you've been forgiven and your mind will

say okay it's time to go back to the

practice

so you should ask your intuition and see

does it feel that way

okay thank you very much

i have a question

yes

when you're radiating in the different

directions does it matter which order

you radiate in like first and

you know like

usually i'll do front and in the back

and then

east west and then um

up and down at the end or can you do i

mean does it matter

which how you do that which order you do

that in

no it doesn't matter uh what really

matters is when you're radiating not to

push

so you have an intention of one

direction and you just watch the flow of

the meta or the compassion or whatever

it might be

going in that direction and the next

direction and so on so

the the sequence of directions doesn't

really matter at all

okay

thank you

uh delson i i do have another question i

do apologize if anybody else was wanting

to jump in

again

with me saying earlier on that we've

just had a child so like obviously

time's like quite limited and but but

actually sometimes now i'm getting maybe

an hour to myself in the morning

um i i have quite a strong like like for

walking meditation like is it

advisable to try and just sit for an

hour as opposed to maybe try and break

that into a half an hour sit and a half

an hour walk because i find that walking

meditation really does help me take

the practice into daily life

where obviously it feels like you can

make more

progress in some ways so sitting

practice

yeah i i would incline towards walk uh

sorry towards uh sitting for one hour

rather than breaking that up between

walking and sitting because you want

that time you really want as much time

as you can

to keep the mind settled while it's in

sitting meditation

i mean no doubt there is great benefit

in walking meditation as you just said

which is you know you are able to infuse

loving kindness with whatever it is

you're doing it's a great practice to do

that so my suggestion there would be

uh do the do the sitting practice for

one hour

because you want you want as much time

as possible to do the sitting and then

when you're doing whatever else you're

doing infuse it with loving kindness

uh you know it's just it's just it

doesn't just have to be walking

meditation if you're

taking a shower have loving kindness

you're eating breakfast how loving

kindness you're driving your car have a

living

you're taking the bus have loving

kindness whatever it is you're doing you

are the computer

of loving kindness

if you can smile you can meditate on the

goal

thank you i was beautiful answer thank

you very much

uh um

i have a follow-up question to that or

maybe more of a comment

so um i remember the sutta the buddha

saying of course it's the buddha who

says this um

that the the body posture doesn't matter

the equality of the state he's in is the

same

doesn't matter which which jhana or

ayatana that is

and from my experience um also

of course i respect your suggestion and

your recommendation but from my my

experience it's like a walking

meditation can be

can have the same quality and be as deep

as a sitting meditation of course not to

the extent that you have

cessation while walking but up to the uh

seventh genre it's is walking walking

meditation can be as

half the same quality like sitting

meditation

would you agree

so about that uh you know it's quite

possible somebody can have an experience

with cessation while walking because

i've heard somebody had cessation while

they were eating their food they

suddenly just went into cessation

because their mind was so

pure that it let go so

uh to that point yes it can happen uh

but uh the reason i'm saying sitting is

because there's a tendency while you're

walking with your eyes open obviously

uh to you for you to get

easily distracted

uh you know you might look here and

there and start to go into a flow of

different kinds of thoughts

i mean granted yes you can still have

that level of depth in terms of the

meditation while you're walking but it

really depends on the individual so as a

general recommendation as a general

suggestion

i would say

that you should have some time to sit if

you had the choice between sitting and

walking

okay yeah yeah do the walking i'm sorry

do the sitting

and the walking

you can do at later stage but really you

want that time to sit to really settle

the mind because you have one less sense

input

that you have to deal with

if you're walking you have your eyes

open and there's a tendency there can be

a tendency to get more distracted

and with your eyes closed while you're

sitting so it just makes it easier

yeah yeah okay that makes sense thank

you yeah

and i think you would not be able to

quiet down the physical formations while

walking

that is true you would still have

physical formations there would still be

and whereas if you're sitting you have

the ability to tranquilize them

when you get to the fourth genre

completely

and that really and that

the other thing about that is if you

have a certain level of experience

there are people as i said who just

doing something like washing the dishes

or eating their food or something

suddenly going to cessation

if your mind is clear enough and you you

have the experience

you could experience up to the level of

nothingness and so on

while you're walking it's like your

entire body you don't have any awareness

of the body

it's like as if you're floating and the

only contact you have is the feet

when they touch the ground

unless you're levitating and that's a

different story but

if your feet are on the ground

you

will feel the contact there will still

be some contact which is the body leaf

yeah mark yeah i i would think

it would be also very important to the

location of where you're walking for the

purpose of a uh

what could be called a situational

awareness you know you've got traffic

you've got other people

you've got things going on

your own safety is

is could be important in that process so

that

the choice of location for the walking

would be very important so that you

would have the serenity as well as the

safety

to go into whatever level is appropriate

and that you could use in your practice

yeah that's a very practical point i

mean it's much easier to be for example

here in damascus to do walking because

you don't have to take you know you

don't have to take into account traffic

and things like that

than it is for when you're walking down

the street and you have to cross traffic

that's a very good point so

uh the setting also matters where you're

walking

thank you

i i want to say i just want to say that

we have had some men

over the years i think um that mark and

hunter can remember a certain red-headed

person who might be in the room right

now who just could not stop walking and

needed to walk it off and that is the

first step of stealing the formation

when you're working with men that are

hyper you have to let them walk if they

prefer the walking instead of sitting i

think you'd agree with that

and then what happens is they get to a

point

where they've walked it off enough and

then it's time to sit and when they come

back and sit everything calms down you

know pretty well and it can go into a

sitting but if you try to sit before you

walk if you come home from work and

you're really you know oh gosh this

whole day was like this okay you you

some men just really want to do it i

haven't i've haven't found a woman yet

that really wanted to walk as hard as

some of the men but it happens you know

that's that's a very good point yeah

yeah yeah

that's a very good point because

sometimes i also will recommend if

people feel agitated or they're feeling

restless while they're sitting

they just need some activity in the in

the form of walking or even just running

just to just to expend that extra energy

it's worth the time too to take the time

in the beginning of the retreat to take

one day or two days to check everyone's

posture and to to take the time to find

out what they prefer in their first uh

you know interview

and then uh to watch make sure they're

trained for walking looking six feet

ahead or eight feet ahead at the ground

and not taking a nature walk because

there's training involved in walking

meditation it's not something you just

say go take a walk

and we've all had it i know mark and

andre and i have had it or when

hi irwin

i know irwin really needed to walk

you know and um

maybe kick a tree

i was just trying really hard most of

the time so

irwin i hope you don't kick trees

anymore there might be some tree davis

in there you don't want it disturbed so

yeah well i apologize to them

i accepted

um delson

before before i

found out about swim i used to do a lot

of concentration meditation i've i've

been doing twin for two for a few years

but i still have a habit of like forcing

and trying too hard and you know i'm

getting better at it but some of you had

any advice

yeah you know that's interesting

somebody asked the question like what

are the two things that you see that are

really uh very common among people uh

when it comes to challenges of

meditation and one is definitely trying

too hard and the other is self

acceptance

in other words you know don't be so hard

on yourself don't try to set

such expectations on yourself

if you're enjoying the meditation if

you're enjoying the process then that

means the meditation is working

so if your mind is light

your mind will be clear if you're

if you try too hard your mind you will

see will start to have some restlessness

in the the pressure of the concentration

practice the pressure of trying too hard

brings about a lot of mental energy and

that mental energy manifests

in the form of restlessness

whenever you sit down for meditation

have a

kinder and softer approach a much more

gentle approach and just have the

attitude of let's see what comes up

you know if you have that kind of an

attitude and then just keep observing

your whole your whole

goal here or your let's say the whole

point or the whole effort in the

practice is

to just observe how mind's attention

moves and then when you see that it's

off its object of meditation

just six are every time you six are you

purify your mind and you bring your

mindfulness much you make your

mindfulness much sharper which means now

you'll be even more collected

so it is a

feedback loop that helps

um helps you to sharpen your mindfulness

helps you to sharpen your collectiveness

but if you try too hard from the

beginning what you're going to find is

it's going to be difficult for you to

even recognize that you are restless or

that you are not mindful and it will be

difficult for you to then 6-hour that

process because it takes more time

thanks uh one of the things that happens

is like i'm

i'm trying to let myself be

comfortable feeling relaxed because it

sort of it almost feels like wrong a

little bit to like not be concentrating

and then so

sometimes i'm like i'm getting like like

i think i'm like being relaxed within

like after the meditation like i have a

headache like oh i actually was like

concentrating too hard i didn't notice

it when i was in the meditation though

so when it comes to having a relaxed

feeling

uh there's a couple of ways to

understand that if you see

well first of all there's nothing

there's nothing wrong with relaxing i

mean everybody in this world wants to

relax

and to feel guilty of uh wanting to

relax you know that's

that you have to let go of that's that

would be something that you don't need

more of you know

we already have a lot of people who are

tense in the world and creating all

kinds of crazy situations because they

have so much tension and

so on so

it's actually a good thing to relax it's

a good thing to tranquilize uh the

bodily formations

it's a good thing to become relaxed and

collected because of that relaxation

one way of understanding you know what

is relaxed feel like

is you know what relax feels like i mean

when you tense up your your fist

and you just let that go so when you

recognize that there's some tension

going on you recognize that there's some

restlessness going

that is a point of tension that you have

to just let go of so you recognize it

you release your awareness from it and

you just relax and it relaxes just

letting it go um i had somebody a friend

of mine who was talking about this and

he had an interesting way of

discussing this and that was

it's like when you when you take your

finger and you look at your finger

your mind becomes super fixed on that

finger and you lose

complete awareness of what's happening

outside of just looking at your finger

the relaxed step is

going from just looking at the finger to

just looking at everything it's like

you're expanding your vision if

you're expanding your sense of sight

well while your eyes are open but in the

meditation

it's like you're just expanding your

awareness you're opening up your

awareness when you do

so if you feel

when in the practice that the mind

becomes constricted and it's just trying

too hard or it's trying to just stay

with this object of meditation that's

when you know that you know you have to

pull back

you have to make less effort you have to

relax

and just watch how mind becomes

collected because of the right causes

and conditions that come into play to

give that give rise to that collective

thank you

hey nelson i have a question that might

seem off track from this but in a way

it's not i guess i

because it all has to do with peace of

mind and when you meditate you know

getting rid of those crazy thoughts and

stuff and

but um

family or all of them have this fear of

the month of october

because there have been a couple of

deaths in our family by younger people

and you know

and you know like my dad was he was in

his 30s and my niece my

my sister's daughter

she was also in her 30s you know but in

any case so everybody you know we have

this little uneasiness about the month

of october so i don't know

i guess it's a superstition

you know so it's something to be six

hard

you know it's just that underlying thing

that's there in the month of october

your input would be on something like

that

yeah there's a tendency for the mind to

make certain kind of correlations and

connections

but there's no causality there it's just

a correlation it's just that okay that

happens in the month of october but

there's no real truth to that there's no

real you know causation based on that so

my my immediate uh

advice there would be to six r that let

go of that idea because this

thing like it's a form of clinging to

rights and rituals when you think about

superstitions and things like that

because what it's saying is

on the flip side of that what it's

saying is for example you know you think

that you have a lucky sock or you you

you you know carry around a four-leaf

clover and somehow that's going to

change your fortunes or that psalm are

you going to change your luck

that is in violation of the

understanding of the law of causation

because what you're saying is you're

going beyond the law of causation to say

that if i just do this then you know

all that karma and everything else won't

matter

in other words it is effort

it is intention

mental effort verbal effort

uh physical effort whatever it might be

it is that action that gives rise to the

karma so people who seem to be

very well to do or wealthy and things

like that and it seems like you know

they either just inherited

inherited it or they just you know

didn't do a lot of work doesn't mean

that in that particular life it it

doesn't mean that they just got it out

of nowhere it means that in a previous

life

they had generosity

they had the purity of mind and they

were always keeping the precepts

and so because of that it it generated

into a more wholesome state of mind

whether it's in this particular life or

in the next life

you have to understand it that any kind

of superstition like that would be a

form of clinging to a specific kind of

view related to rights and rituals and

just let that go by 6r okay well that

makes it yeah yeah okay

if i could just convince them

you know my sisters too

yeah well that'd be that's great thank

you

welcome

nelson i wanted to ask you one question

the um

let me see

was um

just it was like about relaxing you know

and feeling and stuff like that do you

think that there was any instruction by

the buddha to actually do anything

personally in the meditation or would

you say that

uh it was a direction for watching

and observing

primarily

so yeah that's that's always been that's

always been my own emphasis in teaching

is whenever i have a retreat or whenever

i tell students is

there's two things you do just observe

and six are and by the end of the

retreat you're gonna get tired of me

saying the same thing over and over and

over again but it's important to know

you're just being aware of what's going

on with your mind's attention everything

else will take care of itself because of

light intention of loving kindness here

because you're generating the experience

and so on anything beyond that except

for the six hours then that's an

experience of trying too hard making too

much of an effort the observing which is

the right mindfulness the mindfulness

that we talk about is the bare awareness

of what is arising and passing away in

reference to your attention

if you direct your attention to

something

and or rather you're saying that the

attention can be controlled

then now you're making too much effort

now you're putting the sense of self

there now you're putting the sense of

making it personal

but if you just see the attention itself

as being impersonal and you're observing

how the attention moves and then nudging

it along with the six r's and so on then

it naturally gives rise to

right collectedness to samadhi

yeah

um and also say uh

you know in india we deal an awful lot

with

one point concentration and having them

come over to experiment and find out

uh what

the tranquil wisdom insight meditation

is actually all about

and um

in going to the breathing instructions

if you look at the breathing

instructions there's not anything here

at all

from section 18 through

you know the dyads of the whole thing

that says do something it says

experience something it says obs you

know the instructions to observe but

it's just talking about experiencing so

there really isn't anything it says to

actually do

and being a being a watcher is all it's

really asking us to do is to watch right

rising and passing away the phenomena

yeah

yeah right exactly

that's why it's such an easy easy

practice that's why it's so effective

because you are training yourself by

watching how the mind's attention is

moving

the mind is teaching itself when it does

that oh yeah if you if you try to

control the situation

uh that's where things get haywire

basically it just it just creates

more hindrances

and it brings up more personalization

when especially when you have one point

of concentration because they're they're

trying to direct the attention somewhere

and then that causes not only just pain

in the head but it also causes pain in

daily life because now you see that you

suppress the hindrances

and then when you come out of it the

hindrances come back up you know the

metaphor i use is like it's like you

have a beach ball and you put it under

the water and you suppress it and then

you let go and it comes back with full

force and you don't know what to do with

that

exactly

and the other thing that i found over

here was that if i talk to someone about

uh you know the mindfulness being an

observation and not concentration i keep

saying it's not concentration instead we

started saying it's a refined uh it's a

redefined

retuned form of concentration with

specifics and then they settled down

you know but they get so upset if you

say that i've been concentrating you

know for 15 20 years and i i have to do

this you know and then they think don't

you can't take concentration away i'm

not taking it away i'm refining it and

retuning it and then they settle down

it's just kind of fun yeah

that's the that's the sneakiness of uh i

try

there was one other thing if you're if

your people are afraid for october you'd

go and read you know read the um the

suta mn 131 the bhararakatasuta

and give up the past for the month of

october and give up the future worry and

the concern for the past and take trika

turn maybe take a turn living in the

present time just as a little crystal

ball a crystal carriage carrying you

through the month of october the kids

will love the story they do here anyway

to just be able to not think about covid

forget what happened in the past let go

of all of the grief and things that

we've dealt with over here and

it's still going on here it's not the

same as in the states at all you know

yeah but

131 is really helpful

uh to

look at the present time

and um they're specific in the pros in

that one poetry if you can i don't know

if you have the book it's really the

short

poem that is the one fine night

the 1999 you're talking about uh it's um

one that's right yeah wait a minute it's

it's uh what is that like this one's

right here

i didn't know if you had the book

sitting there let not a person revive

the past or on the future hold us hopes

for the past has been left behind and

the future has not been reached

instead with insight let him see each

presently arisen state

and let him know it and be sure of it

invincibly and unshakably that this pure

mind this this clear mind really exists

and just keep relaxing and watch

and it gets fun it gets really fun

thank you wonderful thank you for that

nelson

yes um

yeah

you talked about um just observing the

movement of the mind

and

i was wondering

how the object of meditation

fits in with that particular

yeah there is some level of right effort

which is to say

what you're doing is you're observing

how mind's attention moves so that's the

mindfulness part of it the initial

application of thought which is to

ignite the loving kindness to

intentionalize the loving kindness that

then is your object of meditation

and you are

you're observing the object of

meditation and then you're observing

unless in the sense you're observing the

loving kindness you're observing the

flow of love and kindness your spiritual

friend or in radiating or whatever it

might be

and then while in that process of

observation the mind might get detracted

from its object it might just go to

somewhere else so in that process of

observing your mind is open enough to be

able to catch

that

there has been a distraction that there

has been a hindrance

really the the starting point is

observing but in the way of observing

where the observation itself itself

or the attention itself

strengthens the collectedness of mind so

the more you're able to observe the

loving kindness so you bring it up in

the beginning that's the first channel

you bring it up with the intention of

loving kindness with a verbalization or

whatever it might be but once you have

then you're just watching it and then

you're just observing it and

eventually the mind becomes collected

the more you observe it so the two

things that you're doing really are the

observation which is the mindfulness of

that

object and the second is the six r's the

right effort

when you see the mind is distracted you

let go

of that distraction uh so you recognize

it you let go you relax and then you

smile to uplift the mind and you come

back so there is that right effort of

coming back to observing the object of

because um in the instructions from

banky my understanding is that there

always is an odd object of meditation

yeah

yeah whether it's loving kindness

compassion or any of the brahmaviharas

or quiet mind there is still an object

there that you're just observing

and the object's um purpose is

when the mind drifts

then you

being collected by returning to the

object

i just wanted to clarify that because

what you were saying was just observe

but there is always kind of a touchstone

for the observation yes

that's a very good that's a very good

addition to it because the whole point

of the as you just said the whole point

of the object is to keep the mind tied

to something so the way i kind of look

at it is like the it's like a a rock

that uh is the string is tied to it and

it's like a balloon so it might go away

from its object but then it comes back

with the six hour process

um and so when we talk about the

unification of mind for example the

ekagata that said in pali it's really

that the mind or the attention is no

longer scattered by it so even if

it gets

if it gets askew if it gets detracted

there is something to return to which is

the object i said yeah okay

i was looking for the anchor anchor you

see the anchor

in the one point concentration got

really serious because you had to tie

yourself to it and fix on it and think

what i've run into

delson is people come actually think

that that object is going to give them

the answer to nibana it's very serious

we actually ran in bunty and i ran into

a woman in australia and i had asked him

the question in the morning does it ever

occur

for a breathing meditation to believe

that the breath is so important if i

don't pay attention to it that i can't

breathe and then that day

one in the morning one in the afternoon

two 40-year-old women came in and said

we cannot do mental if we do not pay

attention to our breaths we will not be

able to breathe and they actually

believed it i was shocked

and then that's really

it's fascinating

no i mean yeah and that's like the

extreme form of one pointed

concentration because the whole point of

one point of concentration is

i become the meditation object itself

so my my existence

my personality is now tied to the object

of meditation which happens in yoga

which is the

the the unification or the union of the

atman with the brahman

that's a very extreme form of that yeah

but we're different with our position we

actually enter we we had a we had a

retreat in 2017 for 35 people in pohang

and malaysia and we spent three days

trying to determine if there were laws

for meditation and one of those laws

what's what is the law that is absolute

concerning an object in meditation

so you have to ask the question why do

all meditations seem to have an object

of meditation and nelson you said it

it's like it's ice it's like an anchor i

draw a picture of an anchor with a boat

and a harbor and it can't float away so

now it's safe to go to bed for the night

but you're always going to be in that

vicinity but you can't you know if we

say timey to it there it's buying into

the one point concentration you have to

be careful with that one and

and because it and the other thing is

you can't blame a teacher for this you

can't if you're sitting over here these

teachers are in front of 125 people or

try try the big the big one at 5 000

people and a teacher is teaching at

something there's 5 000 brains in front

of you and you say something even when

gowenka said it i read listen to many of

his talks are just fine okay

but but

okay he's giving instruction maybe the

right way on a subject to 5 000 people

and how do each brain hear that

you can't go around and figure that out

you see

treats it's a timely thing for the

teacher yeah

yeah

i think i think the object of meditation

is important obviously for the

meditation i mean the whole definition

of meditation is

that you have something that the mind is

thinking about i mean the very very

general basic definition

meditation

hmm we seem to have lost delson

he's from meditation which is brought up

[Music]

what i was saying is the the the whole

point about the meditation i mean the

general definition of meditation is that

the mind as something that it collects

itself around so to speak the attention

is collected around something

but

the whole point here is to see that you

don't become your object of meditation

you

[Music]

and

even the intention of loving kindness

even the intention of compassion is not

your intention and this might this might

go over some people's heads but when you

get deeper and deeper into the practice

you see that even intention

is impersonal and you don't take the

jhana you don't take the meditation

personally it's all happening because of

the right causes and conditions coming

together

so the observation helps to keep that

distance of self

in that process

and the 6r helps to keep the mind

let's say collected or

unified not to the extent of becoming it

but unified as a way of keeping the mind

clear

the whole point is to bring the mind to

a level of clarity and depth so that

insight can arise

because if you become one one pointed

and you suppress as i was saying you not

only suppress the mind and the

hindrances but you suppress the

opportunity for any kind of insights to

arise naturally

thank you nelson uh let me jump in here

we uh we have been doing some interviews

with delson over the last week or so

and i'm gonna make some videos out of

all those things and we get into some

really deep dharma stuff

we get into some

upcoming neuroscience research that

delsin has participated in

and

we talk about dependent origination we

talk about narota cessation i mean you

name it we're getting into it

and the first video where bill nelson

introduces himself and his background

and gives us a thumbnail sketch of the

jonas and so on

that's going to come out tomorrow at 1

p.m same time we started this video here

and i'm just putting

[Music]

i am putting that in the chat so that

you can get a link to that but tomorrow

at 1 pm uh that will be our first

release of these interviews and there

should be a number of them to follow

and of course we will have a recording

of this zoom call up as well so

let's take a few more questions and uh i

think we're getting pretty long here

uh anybody else got a few more for one

yeah i just wanted to uh

offer you know kind of like a metaphor

for

really deep practice

uh in the sense of

looking of a you had the balloon in the

water and it made me think of like a uh

very small bubble at the bottom of a

swimming pool

where consciousness is

coming into formation

and as the bubble rises it gets

larger and larger and larger and it's

and it's easier and easier to see

and so in the process of practice we're

seeing these large thought bubbles take

place and as the sensitivity grows

you see them

at a earlier earlier level or a smaller

level and so the the practice becomes

watching those

formations maybe at a tiny level and

then maybe six arring at that time but

the

the metaphor of the bubble

in the pool was is one that people can

relate to and i i find it very useful i

wanted to share that that is very useful

thank you for that and then there comes

a point when there are no bubbles at all

and that's the cessation

oh you went on mute you went on mute

there hey please yes that's true

any other questions

yeah i have another question um

thank you about

the english terms of like unification

of mind or collectedness

so i always wondered since

uh and and on the other side also the

sutas we hear uh the mind being

scattered uh outwardly or externally

this

collectedness or

unification

or scatteredness it implies that there

is something that can be at

different places at the same time

but like isn't it that mind's attention

uh can only be with one thing at a time

there is nothing that can be collected

unified because there is only one thing

at a time

and uh

and also

that doesn't mean that it's more like

calming i'm sorry to interrupt but my

internet just went down for a second so

i didn't hear the whole flow of the

question can you please

do it again it's

perfect that's perfect yeah it's about

you mentioned it ekagata

and in english we we say collectedness

mostly we don't use concentration of

course but we have collectedness or

unification but actually there isn't

anything that is that can be scattered

or unified because mind's attention can

only be

with one thing at a time

so is

is isn't it kind of misleading to to to

to think of it as something that can be

collected or unified

and isn't it more uh

proper more more um

useful to think of it like calming

calming down or becoming tranquil like

my the movement of mind's attention is

calming down

i like that interpretation that's a very

good interpretation because you're right

the attention can only go to one object

at a time

it just feels like the mind is scattered

it just feels like the attention is

scattered but what you're really doing

is you're redirecting the attention back

to its object so

i like that idea of tranquilizing and

relaxing because then that's

just calming down

the the mental energy of the

distractedness and then bringing it back

that's a good way of putting it i think

it helps other people understand as well

yeah yeah okay thank you

i i think uh it also depends on when you

look

uh at the term ekagata how you break it

up uh aika means one but ekaga is

tranquility

right

and calmness yeah yeah okay thank you

i always wanted to ask that question

uh david i have a question for you can i

ask you a question

i don't

i know you're the one person that might

know but delson might know too what is

the suta about scattered internally or

externally do you remember dawson

all right

yeah i know what you're talking about

tonight

that's what well

that's the suit it explains what it

means to be scattered externally is that

your mind won't stay in and in watching

see

when

when you haven't you're sitting you're

sitting here okay and you're

watching here with the peripheral vision

inside and then you can't stay there and

you keep going outside of this boundary

outside towards

towards hindrances and other thoughts

and everything that's a scattered mind

externally but i can't remember david

what did it say about the scattered mind

internally remember we used to do that

suit a lot

done it a lot

is that the upper class 128 no no it's

not 128. um it's not 128. that's some

different

that a scattered internal and i'm trying

to remember the name of it i can't

remember it but there is one that is

or the early hundreds and i'm trying to

look at i can't figure it out what it is

there's one thirty eight which

one let me try that talks about

restlessness

okay wait a second

i mean

there's something related to that

there's something related to that which

talks about a mind or an attention that

is non-dispersed and from that i

interpret it as saying on scattered

meaning the mind doesn't

doesn't become swayed

here and there by some kind of

distraction that's right it wasn't 138.

wait a minute is um

here you go i got it i got it

138 okay

and what it has is scattered externally

or stuck internally

and the cause is craving

keeping attention on the distraction is

a bad thing

you see and it talks about distracted

and scattered

externally and then it goes over and

says

not

distracted or scattered external it

gives you an explanation at section 11

10 and 11. that would help someone who

thinks they're

you know

what we were just what you were just

talking about if you go back to that

uh that's my imagination one

thirty eight you said

no it wasn't 138 with a second

uh it's um and it's the one about

agitate agitation is what this is about

agitation

that would i say would i say it was did

somebody hear me say whatever they said

you said they saved

what i'm trying to find it again

page

1075. yeah 1001

1074 is udacivenga the exposition of a

summary hint it's the topic is hindrance

management

agitation and non-agitation it's a

really good one to read about

uh the hindrances very very good one

yeah

and the stuck internally the stuck

internally i i would say is the way i

interpret that is

not to take the meditation seriously

it sounds very counter-intuitive but

it's basically not to make it a big deal

just let things flow

and let this just happen

yeah i would say

that's going along with what it's saying

exactly yeah

yeah not stuck internally is when you're

doing you're sitting and calmly doing it

yeah going through the journals

okay i think that's uh i think that's a

wrap yeah

what does everybody think

all right any less questions or i'll go

all right we have a thumbs up

okay

going once

going twice

okay it's a wrap

thank you very much gelson

topic today was about giving so go and

give and give off

thank you

from damasuke production

goodbye thank you bye

follow those precepts

thank you nelson

thank you

thank you david

thank you thank you thank you

thank you

[Music]

you